


just a little static on the line

by isawet



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-06-03 05:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6597853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isawet/pseuds/isawet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fallout of Maura's abduction in s6. Maura/Jane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dead end road

**Author's Note:**

> I would view this as canon divergent, simply because I'm still playing catch-up and haven't seen all the episodes. If there's anything that's in error, feel free to tell me! 
> 
> Also, I do not yet have a beta, so I'll fix errors as I become aware of them. 
> 
> Trigger warning for PTSD, please don't read if it will upset you.

Maura makes herself wait until the third panic attack, the third nightmare that leaves her frozen in her bed, sweating through the top sheet, her breath high in her lungs, her muscles trembling. It’s entirely illogical to choose three as her mark, based entirely upon the human brain’s tendency to search for groupings, meaning. Maura decides it’s acceptable for her at this point to not fall on the side of science--her brain has been traumatized, and it’s unreasonable for her to expect it to function properly until she’s processed the… incident.

“I had an epiphany,” she tells her therapist on their first session. It’s someone her (biological) mother recommended, known for her work with trauma victims and managing PTSD. 

“Oh?” Dr. Thulasi--call her Melissa, please--looks faintly bemused. Maura had come in with a folder containing her medical reports from the hospital and a timeline for her expected recovery, some of Maura’s own notes. 

Maura is aware of her effect on the average person. She decided long ago not to dwell or attempt to blend with social expectations. It often works as an excellent filtering system. A job as demanding as she has doesn’t allow for close relationships with a large group of people anyway. Melissa’s response is promising--she acknowledges Maura abnormal approach, but doesn’t appear judgemental or condescending; Maura is pleased both by her test and by the doctor’s response. 

“Yes,” she says. “As a medical professional and a foremost logical thinker, I was drawn to articles discussing PTSD in chemical and biological terms. However, as a victim, it will be most helpful to focus on articles written in layman’s terms. I already understand why I have PTSD and what it means. What I need is strategies for managing and eliminating the symptoms.”

Melissa makes a small note. “Impressive self-reflection, Dr. Isles.”

Again, Maura is pleased. “Maura, please.” Respect for her title, her position, and allowing her to increase intimacy at her own pace. 

“I find your acceptance to be defined as a victim surprising,” Melissa continues, “in so much that many survivors resist being labeled a victim.”

“Victim is the most accurate term for my situation,” Maura says. “Furthermore, I will be known as a victim in police reports and judicial proceedings. While I do not enjoy experiencing victimhood, avoidance of exact vocabulary will make no differences in the recovery process.”

“If anything,” Melissa says, “it could only expedite it. Therapy works, Maura, but it requires trust, and honesty. It’s my job to create an atmosphere that you feel you can be truthful and engaged in. If it doesn’t work, it won’t be because it’s your fault, and I can help you find a therapist that suits your needs and your goals.”

“I’m optimistic about our working relationship,” Maura says. “If issues arise with my care I have no problem expressing them with you and brainstorming solutions. In that vein, in our next session I will have copies of my statement to the police.”

“An excellent place to start,” Melissa agrees. 

//

“Are you sure about this?” Jane hovers in her office doorway, emanating anxious concern. “You gave a statement at the scene.”

“The only other person you could talk to is dead,” Maura says briskly. Jane makes an offended noise. “I didn’t say it was your fault, Jane, but it is what happened.”

“Maura.” Jane’s tone is firm, and Maura looks up from her paperwork. Jane has crossed the room while she wasn’t paying attention. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I do,” Maura disagrees. “This person is still out there, and they want to hurt you. I’m very invested in his capture by the proper authorities. Who are not you.”

Jane bites her thumbnail. “I know, I can’t believe they took me off the case.”

Maura swats Jane’s hand out of her mouth. Jane recoils out of her reach and spits a sliver of her fingernail out onto Maura’s desk. “Jane!” She feels the smile stretch across her face.

Jane sticks her tongue out. “You’re a coroner. You touch grosser things than that a million times a day.”

Maura stands. “Your estimation skills are abysmal. And I’m not a coroner. I’m the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth--”

“Blah blah Old Bay State,” Jane says.

Maura pulls a compact and adjusts a few strands of her hair. “You’re mixing nicknames,” she notes. When she leaves Jane follows her, chewing her thumbnail again. “Jane. It’s going to be fine. I’m just going to tell them exactly what happened. Studies indicate sharing the experience to someone who believes you can be cathartic, and is an important step in the healing process.”

“You can stop anytime you want to,” Jane says like she hasn’t been listening at all. They step into the elevator together and Jane jams the button impatiently--one-two-three-four-five-six times. Maura’s told her two hundred and fourteen times that further presses after initial activation does not increase the speed of the elevator. “Korsak will take care of you.”

The elevator dings. “Vince isn’t taking my statement,” Maura says. “Detective Lee is.”

“What?” Jane catches her by the wrist. “Why.” Her tone is demanding and knowing all at once.

Maura blinks. “How did you know I requested a different detective?”

Jane waves her hand impatiently. “I could tell by the way you said it. Why would you do that?”

“I’ve been doing research on other cases,” Maura explains. They start walking again. “While the justice system is undeniably slanted towards the state in most prosecutions, any perceived bias by the detectives could hurt the odds of an eventual conviction. When they catch the person responsible for… everything, I want the case against him to be as strong as I can help make it. That means a detective with no personal ties to me takes my statement.” Her palms feel sweaty, which is unusual because she normally experiences a lower body temperature than the average woman of her height, weight, and age. Jane’s hand is on her shoulder, and she doesn’t remember how it got there.

“Okay,” Jane says. “But you can still stop whenever you want to. Even if that is right now, before it happens.”

This statement is how Maura can be helpful. And she has already told Melissa she will be bringing a copy to her office for their next session. She doesn’t want to make changes to her timeline. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Jane leans in close to Maura, examining her neck and collarbones. Her hair smells like Irish Spring. Maura makes a note to restock Jane’s shower with a better shampoo--Jane’s curls are too beautiful for a low end bar-soap made liquid. “Are you smelling me?”

“No,” Jane says, pulling back just a fraction. “I’m looking for hives.”

A wave of emotion sweeps over Maura, warm. Fondness. She identifies it and allows it to trigger a response: love, gratitude. “I’m not lying. I’m fine.” She stops in front of an interview room. “He’s waiting for me.”

“Okay,” Jane says. She leans against the opposite wall. Maura stares at her. Jane makes a shooing motion. “You know you hate being late.”

“You don’t have to wait for me,” Maura says, but her hands aren’t trembling anymore.

“You don’t have to wait for me,” Jane mimics in an exaggerated high pitched voice. She deepens it to a growl: “I’ll always wait for you.”

“I don’t understand that reference,” Maura says primly, and goes into the room. She turns to close the door behind her and catches an expression she doesn’t think Jane meant for her to see--exhaustion, concern.

//

At the end of the day Maura receives the email she’s been waiting for. She prints a copy of the attachment and puts it in a plain manila file folder. Jane happens to be at her desk, scowling at a stack of paperwork. “You’re holding your pencil wrong,” Maura tells her. “It’s putting pressure on your phalanges. Changing your grip can aid you in avoiding callosity.”

“Oh no,” Jane mocks without looking up, “not my phalanges!”

“Prevention is much easier than treatment where calluses are concerned,” Maura says, and drops the file on Jane’s desk. “This is for you.”

Jane picks it up. “We don’t have a case right now.”

“It’s a copy of my statement. I checked with the detective and there’s no harm in you having access to it, as I’ve already signed it.”

Jane looks faintly guilty. “I read it as soon as it was forwarded to Korsak.”

“I know,” Maura says, “this is symbolic.”

“Oh.” Jane puts the folder in a desk drawer. “You should know I flunked high school literature.”

Maura could tease her for her obvious dislike of looking for hidden meaning rather than direct statements of truth and the irony of that in a very talented, intuitive detective. She chooses not to, in order to underscore the importance of what she’s saying. “I don’t want you to look at the report from the hospital.”

“Why?” Jane’s voice is sharp, almost panicked. “What’s in there?”

Maura thinks she may have miscalculated. She expected hurt, perhaps, or pushback. Jane has sat up straight in her chair, frown lines around her mouth. Maura hesitates to assess her options and Jane jumps to her feet, grabbing Maura by the elbow. Her fingers brush bruises but Maura doesn’t flinch. “Jane?”

“With me.” Jane drags her around the corner, through a short hallway, and into an office supply closet. It smells like cheap bleach and printer ink. Once the door is closed behind them, Jane takes a step back. “The hospital told us they’re still running tests, and will release your information when they have the results.”

“Yes,” Maura says. “I know you’re used to rushed results from my lab, but there is often a long log of tests to run, and not enough funding or personnel to complete it quickly.”

Jane rubs a hand over her face. “If there’s something else that happened to you while you were-” she stumbles for a second “--gone. You know you can tell me.” She catches Maura’s hand. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“Of course,” Maura reassures. Jane’s face doesn’t lose its pinched look. “You already know I wasn’t seriously injured.”

“Surface abrasions,” Jane parrots promptly, “single facial hematoma.”

“Very good,” Maura praises. Jane preens. Maura thinks, not for the first time, that training Jane not to hide her obvious intellect is eerily similar to training Jo Friday not to pee on the rug. “Knowing isn’t the same--hospital reports are clinical. There are pictures, and measurements.” It wasn’t as bad as the rape kit, but the rape kit file was never run, released, or disclosed in court. “I don’t want you to think of me that way.” She crosses her arms across her torso and looks at the wall. There’s a discoloration, just below a shelf. A chemical spill has stained the olive paint brown. Maura considers a joke about reddish brown stains but can’t quite pull together a punchline.

“Maura,” Jane says softly. Her hand hovers over Maura’s shoulder, then lands, cool fingered, on the back of her neck, soft pressure on the top knob of her spine. Maura resists for a second, then leans in, resting her forehead on the juncture of Jane’s neck and shoulder. “You’re amazing,” Jane continues. “I could never think less of you.”

Maura sniffles a little, nuzzles into Jane’s skin. “Your opinion matters a great deal to me.”

Jane rubs a hand on the small of Maura’s back, reassuring. “Cross my heart.”

Maura doesn’t want to leave the curtain of Jane’s dark curls. She’s not ready to stand on her own feet yet. She needs just one more moment of safety. “Promise?”

“Cross my heart,” Jane says softly. “Not even if you wear those skeletoes again.”

Humour as a medium for emotional vulnerability. Maura has long learned to recognize and accept when Jane has had enough of direct communication. “FiveFinger Vibrams,” she corrects, stepping back. “And research has indicated no truth to their claim for prevention of heel injuries and strengthening foot muscles.”

“Oh,” Jane says, overexaggerated with wet eyes, fighting for normalcy, “well if the _research_ says so.”

//

“Your statement is very clinical,” Melissa notes. 

“Yes,” Maura agrees, readily. She expected and has prepared for the line of questioning. “I thought it best to outline the facts of my abduction and focus on what I could remember about Dr. Harris and his yet-unknown accomplice.” She pauses. “It is not yet clear whether or not I will need to testify--of course,” she rushes to correct herself, “I have the utmost confidence in Jane and the rest of the BPD in apprehending the person responsible for these crimes.”

“Of course,” Melissa agrees.

“For the purpose of therapy,” Maura clarifies, “I am willing to disclose a separate report here, focusing on the emotional side of my experience.”

//

They don’t get much farther than that. Maura finishes with a description of discharging herself from the hospital against the counsel of her physician and her first nightmare, and the session ends. She leaves shaky, drained. She can't drive like this. Her hands are trembling when she puts her car keys away and takes out her cellphone.

“Maura?” How long, Maura wonders idly, until Jane answers her call with something other than poorly disguised panic? She mentally sets aside time to extrapolate a realistic goal and add it to her timeline. “Maura? Talk to me.”

“Jane.” Maura can hear her own voice, tinny and weak. “I--.” She falters.

“Maura,” Jane repeats, urgent worry, “what’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I’m fine,” Maura forces out. “I just--my car. The battery. I’m at my therapist’s office, do you think you can send a squad car to take me back to my lab?” She’ll feel better in the lab, she’s sure.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jane grouches good-naturedly. “I’ll come get you. Just--wait somewhere well lit.”

Something in the conversation, something about Jane, grounds Maura from the tips of her fingers to the ends of her toes. “It’s barely ten in the morning, Jane.”

“Well lit,” Jane repeats, exaggerated comically, “many people.”

Maura is smiling when she hangs up, and scratches idly at her throat, seeking relief from urticaria--except her nails don’t bump over raised welts. She frowns, and runs sensitive fingerpads over her skin. Nothing. 

//

By the time Jane pulls up at the curb Maura has steadied herself. She slips into the passenger seat and Jane hands her a coffee. “No thank you,” Maura says politely. “I’m avoiding stimulants.”

Jane shrugs and chugs the coffee in long gulps. She tosses the empty cup into the backseat and screeches into mid-morning traffic. “You’re having trouble sleeping?” 

“It’s to be expected,” Maura says. She brushes lint off her dress. “I’m experimenting with treatments.”

Jane taps her fingers on the steering wheel. “You could ask the doc for a scrip.”

“I could write myself a prescription,” Maura notes. Jane rolls her eyes. “My reaction to sleeping aids has been problematic in the past.”

The tapping increases in force and speed. “You’ve tried them before.”

“I have experienced stress before,” Maura says, “although admittedly not to this degree.”

“Hmm.” Jane says. They park at the station and Maura slips the strap of her purse over her shoulder as she exits the car. “No case yet,” Jane says, “paperwork day, unless we get lucky.”

“Let us hope for murder,” Maura says dryly. They blow into the lobby, strides synced.

Jane makes a face and presses her hands close together in semblance of prayer. “Oh Jesus, I’ve been ever so good.”

“Blasphemy,” Angela scolds, bustling over to them with a muffin and fresh coffee--”decaf for you, Maura.”

“Thank you,” Maura takes a happy sip, sighing.

“Why do you automatically assume I’m blasphemous,” Jane complains, ripping the muffin in half vertically and stuffing the top into her mouth. “Maybe I was praying for sick children to be well again.” Maura steps aside to avoid crumb spray.

Angela props her hands on her hips. “And what exactly were you praying for then, Janie?”

Jane shuffles her feet. “Murder,” she mutters in a low voice. Angela rolls her eyes. She shooes them away. “It could be the murder of a bad person,” Jane complains as she stabs at the elevator button--seven times. “Like, someone who really deserves it.”

“It’s important to cultivate achievable dreams,” Maura agrees. The elevator arrives and she steps aside to let it empty. When they enter it, they’re alone--a rarity. Jane immediately starts accosting the close doors button.

“Come on,” she mutters, watching an officer pick up his pace, headed towards them. The doors close with a soft ding. “Yes,” Jane cheers softly. She fist bumps herself in victory. Then she turns to Maura, suddenly serious. “My mother knows you’re having trouble sleeping?” The _you told her and not me_ hangs in the air between them.

“Maybe if you visited your mother more,” Maura tries.

“Ah! Ah ah ah,” Jane heads her off. “You’re not going to be able to distract me with Catholic guilt this time, Dr. Isles.”

“It came up,” Maura says, “your mother has been very kind to treat me as family.”

“You are family,” Jane says bluntly, with an edge of annoyance, “like you don’t know that already.”

“My experience with family is still rather new,” Maura says simply. Jane fidgets. 

“You can’t get rid of us once you’ve got us,” she grumbles, “believe me, I’ve tried for disownment. It’s never stuck.”

“It’s lovely,” Maura says softly. Unconditional love is still a marvel to her.

“Mm,” Jane grunts. “Hey, what’s wrong with your car?”

“The battery is dead,” Maura says without thinking. “I left the interior light on when I went to my appointment. I suppose the stress is making me forgetful.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Jane says, encouraging. Maura can barely hear her. She feels suddenly far away. “You’ll be back to your infallible self in no time. In fact, no rush on that. Feel free to be wrong for a while.”

//

Maura goes the bathroom as soon as she’s able and looks at herself in the mirror. She checks her neck, collarbones, ribs, inner thighs and calves. Unblemished skin, marred only by fading bruises. No hives, no rash. She doesn’t feel the edge of panicky breathing. She doesn't feel guilt.

“Interesting,” she tells her reflection, “from a scientific standpoint.”

//

Maura is a scientist. She can’t accept a conclusion without testing under a number of different parameters. She decides to start small and scale up. She has noticed before that she has been able to lie around Jane, although not about anything serious. Jane, in every other way, has proved out of the ordinary for all of her normal social-emotional responses, and it wouldn’t be illogical to conclude that where Jane is concerned, everything is different. 

So she starts with Kent. There’s no particular emotional tie there, apart from a thread of fondness for some of his more endearing bumbling and a touch of respect for his professional abilities. She considered starting with Pike, but there’s the scientific method and then there’s incurring a migraine on yourself for no good reason.

“Kent,” she says, “you forgot to sterilize the bonesaw. Number Seven.” Number Seven is her favorite, and one she (illogically) considers lucky. Number Seven understands her and what she wants to learn from her cadavers. Jane calls Number Seven ‘Steven’, because there’s illogical conclusions, and then there’s Jane.

“No I didn’t,” Kent says, miffed. In fairness, he did not forget, so he’s entitled to be snippy. Maura experiences no physical response from her lie. She scales up.

“You did,” she insists, pointing to the instrument in question. “Look. Would I forget to tell you? Or say that I did if I hadn’t?”

Kent pauses. “No,” he says, accent colored with confusion. “Sorry Maura, I must have forgotten.” He trails off, shaking his head. “I’ll do it right away.”

“See that you do,” Maura orders crisply, and retreats into her office. _Gaslighting_ , Maura knows, is to twist facts and information in favor of one person to cause another to doubt their own perceptions of reality. Maura has always considered it a particularly cruel form of abuse, and she has just perpetuated it onto her subordinate. She sips a cup of tea and pulls a stack of charts towards herself. She feels fine.

//

Korsak offers her a pistachio from a paper cup, pre-shelled. “No thank you,” Maura hears herself say, “I’m allergic.”

“Sorry,” Korsak says, tossing the cup into a nearby dumpster. He fishes a bottle of hand-sanitizer out of a pocket and squirts it into his palms. He grins at her. “Promise not to kiss you.”

There’s a fact on Maura’s tongue, about how long it would take until he could kiss someone with a pistachio allergy. However, since she was lying, that information is not relevant, and for the first time Maura lets a fact slide off her tongue, down her throat, back into her lungs. She breathes it out and watches it dissipate like smoke in the air. “There’s been a murder?”

Korsak leads her to the body. Caucasian male, out of rigor, looks to be mid to late thirties. He’s six foot one, two hundred pounds, blonde hair. Maura suspects him to have hazel eyes, once the cloud of death leaves them. She crouches and begins a preliminary investigation. “Hey,” Jane says, joining them. “Got anything yet?”

“It’s barely been twenty seconds,” Korsak says.

Maura begins speaking before he’s finished, overlapping. Rude to a man showing her kindness for a lie. Maura remembers his arm around her waist, walking her out of the tunnel into the light. He’d told the EMT to treat her well, voice sharp and protective. He’d lent her his jacket until she’d been settled on the stretcher. “Blunt force trauma. Decomposition of the myofilaments indicated he’s been dead for nearly forty eight hours.” It’s another lie, but a lesser one. She heavily suspects decomposition of the myofilaments, but can’t yet confirm it beyond a reasonable doubt.

“ID?” Jane asks, squatting to pat down the corpse’s jacket. Maura doesn’t carry ID on her person, just her purse. Maybe she should start wearing some kind of alert jewelry, with her name and Jane’s number. “Maura?”

Maura realizes she’s in the way. She stands abruptly. “I’ll know more after the autopsy.”

Jane looks at her for a beat. “Okay. Korsak, get down here and help me go through this man’s pockets for loose change.”

Korsak squats obediently. “I did the front pants pocket last time. It’s your turn.”

Jane fishes in said pockets, grumbling. “Nothing. Hopefully his prints will pop.” She turns to Korsak suddenly, inhaling sharply. “Hey! You have pistachios.” She snaps off a blue glove and extends her palm, demanding. “Gimme.”

Korsak stands, his knees cracking. “Trashed ‘em. The Doc’s allergic,” he jerks his thumb at Maura, who’s turned around, fixing up her kit. The CSI team on scene is competent enough. She’ll be most helpful to the case back at the morgue. She stands and makes to go back.

“No she’s not---hey!”

Jane catches her by the shoulder and drags her to the side, into a small dead end alley. The lights from the squad cars are flashing in Maura’s periphery. “Yes, Jane?”

Jane leans close and peers in Maura’s eyes. “Okay, enough. What the hell is going on with you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Maura tries. Her heart rate has increased. Her vision tunnels.

“You’re not allergic to pistachios,” Jane says, “and I had Tommy go take a look at your car. He’s a deadbeat but he knows how to turn the ignition.”

Maura focuses on a relevant piece of information. “Tommy has a key to my car?”

“No,” Jane says impatiently, “I do, obviously. He picked it up from the house. Maura--Maura!” Her voice rises sharply in alarm as Maura’s knees buckle. She gasps for air. She falls. Jane catches her, easing her back against the dirty brick wall. “Talk to me,” Jane says. Her leg wedges between Maura’s, propping her upright.

“It’s psychosomatic,” Maura says, taking careful breaths. 

“Pyscho-whosit?”

“Psychosomatic,” Maura repeats, focusing on proper definitions. “A physical reaction caused or aggravated by a mental factor.”

“The lie?” Jane asks, confused. “Like your hives, right?”

There’s an opportunity here, Maura knows, to come clean. It would be excellent progress to report to Melissa on their next session. Korsak would be sure to forgive her, Jane would drive her home and hover. “I--yes. He smelled like pistachios.”

Jane is pressed up against her, holding her up, and Maura can feel every one of her muscles recoil. “Harris.”

Maura feels a numbness start in her fingers. “Yes---it seemed like a simpler thing, to be allergic, than to appear weak in front of Vince.” It’s a deliberate use of his first name, a deliberate manipulation of her closest, if not only, friend.

“I understand,” Jane says, voice so gentle. “It’s okay, Maura. Regular people white lie all the time. You can be regular, just for a day.” She brushes Maura’s hair out of her face. “Tomorrow you go back to being Super Maura, okay?” 

She is sure to tell Korsak of this new 'clue.' It is a deliberate lie that is now impacting an official police investigation. An investigation into someone that wants to hurt Jane.

Maura has never felt less regular, or less like herself. “I need to get back to the lab.” She pushes her hands on Jane’s chest, feels the resistance before Jane backs away. It feels like a particularly cutting metaphor, and she leaves her bag behind on the ground as she rushes away from the crime scene, to the officer who’d given her a ride. He holds the crime scene tape up for her and she ducks under it. She wonders if Jane would be standing there, looking at her, if she looked back. She doesn’t look.

//

She gives Kent the autopsy and takes a taxi home. Her car is sitting in the driveway, courtesy of Tommy, and she feels sick again. She throws up and drinks a bottle of water to compensate for her loss of fluids and to stave off a dehydration headache. She steps out of her heels and doesn’t put them away. When she unzips her dress she leaves it crumpled on the floor to crawl in her underwear under the duvet.

When she wakes up it’s dark out and there’s a message blinking on her cellphone. Two missed calls, texts. Jane says _did you leave?_ and _where are you?_ and _Ma says you’re home_ and _call me if you need me_. Maura deletes them and goes back to sleep.

//

She wakes from a dream about sitting in a desert, feeding Bass strawberries. The juice had colored her fingers shiny and bright, and Jane teased her about reddish brown stains. She rinses her mouth out and brushes her teeth, checks the time. Nearly three in the morning. She had meant to update her timeline tonight, but other thoughts take precedence. She feels sick with guilt. She throws her dress in the trash, angry at herself, and drinks a glass of wine. She chews on her fingernails until the polish peels off, ragged. She has another two glasses of wine. Then she finds a pair of slacks and blouse and runs a brush through her hair.

//

“Maura?” Frankie is in his underwear, rubbing at his eyes. “Is everything okay?”

“I need to talk to Jane,” Maura says. In the cab over, her resolve returned, and she feels the need to course correct like an electrical current under her skin.

“You look--” Frankie starts, and stops himself. He scratches his belly button. “Of course. C’mon.” He walks into the apartment and calls out: “Jane! It’s Maura.”

There’s a series of thumps from the tiny closet Jane calls her room, and she stumbles out, blowing hair from her mouth and face. “Maura? Jesus, Frankie, that’s how you answer the door?”

“I’ll die comfortable,” Frankie says, middle finger extended, and shuts the door to his room behind him.

“Maura?” Jane’s voice is careful, and Maura realizes that it’s not within the set of normal social expectations to show up at four in the morning. She waves her hand dismissively. Normal has never been normal for her and Jane.

“Mt. Sinai,” she begins.

“Gesundheit,” Jane says, wrestling her hair into a low ponytail.

Maura sighs. “It’s a community hospital Jane, in New York.”

“Really?” Jane arches an eyebrow, “is it not where God gave us His holiest of rules?” She grins. “Can’t take the catechism out of the girl.”

Maura ignores her. She starts to pace. “Did two study,” she says, “showing that between five and twelve percent of patients surveyed reported reactions after kissing someone who had consumed the relevant allergen.”

Jane is frowning again. “Are you… having an allergic reaction?” She takes a closer look at Maura. “Or a stroke? ‘Did two study’? Sit down.” She tries to pull Maura to the couch and Maura recoils. Her back thumps painfully against the wall.

“No! I’m trying to tell you something important.”

“Okay,” Jane says, hands stretched out soothingly. “Tell me. I’m listening.”

Maura nods. Jane wouldn’t lie to her. “The studies found that waiting several hours, then eating a meal that didn’t contain the allergen, alleviated the effects to a manageable level. This was tested by examining saliva for the allergen. The best way, of course, is to avoid the allergen entirely. It’s the only way to guarantee safety for your partner.”

She looks at Jane expectantly. Jane stares back. “Good to know." Jane says. Her eyes are particularly wide. Maura huffs, frustrated. "This is about pistachios,” Jane says slowly.

Maura smiles, triumphant. “Yes. Exactly.” She breathes out heavily, relieved. “You understand.” She lets her legs go weak under her, sliding her back down the wall until she’s sitting on the floor. Her hands are shaking again.

“Maura,” Jane says softly. She’s crouching by Maura’s side, and Maura hadn’t even noticed her move. Jane puts a hand on her knee. “You smell like wine and puke.”

Maura considers the statement. “Accurate.”

“You couldn’t sleep? Did you drive here?”

Maura glares. “Of course not, I’ve been drinking. And I did sleep.”

“You need more sleep,” Jane says. “You’re wearing two different shoes.”

Maura looks down. “Accurate,” she repeats, and lets her head loll against the wall. She closes her eyes. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me,” she says, and hates her voice for being thick with tears. 

The world tips under her, rolling like an earthquake, shaking her foundations. When it steadies again she’s lying on her side on a mattress and Jane is taking off her shoes. Thump, one goes on the floor, thump, responds the other. The pillow smells like Irish Spring. She breathes deep and closes her eyes.

A warm weight settles next to her, a hesitant arm across her hips. “Go to sleep,” Jane murmurs. “It’ll be better in the morning.”


	2. talk to me

Maura wakes up alone. When she stretches out a hand to the other side of the bed, it’s still indented, warm to the touch. She sits up and stretches. Dry mouth, wine headache, cloudy mind;last night hits her like a freight train. She groans, collapsing backwards before rolling to the edge of the mattress and dragging herself to her feet. 

“Hey.” Jane pokes her head through a crack in the door. “Coffee’s up. Decaf.”

Maura smiles, hesitant. “Thank you, but I should be going. I need to shower before I go into the lab.” She looks down at herself. “And change.”

Jane smiles bright and too big. “Good news! You’re not going to work today, so you have all the time in----well, one day.”

Maura stares. “Of course I’m going to work. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Nope,” Jane says. “I called you in sick. I’m gonna go. Criminals to arrest, paperwork to give to Frost--”

Maura has already launched. “You did _what_?”

Jane withdraws, retreating to the kitchen as Maura gains on her. “And I called your therapist. You have an appointment at two. Alright, I’m headed to the office--”

“Jane Clementine Rizzoli!”

Jane falls silent and short, one hand stretched out for the door handle. Frankie sniggers and she throws him a murderous look. “Shut up, _Francis_.”

Frankie glares. He starts to hum under his breath. Jane makes a note of his name and turns to Maura. “Why are you calling me that? You’ve got to stop living with my mother.”

“Living adjacent to,” Maura corrects. “And I cannot believe you called in for me!”

“Beat it, Frick-n-Frank,” Jane snaps. Frankie glares.

“I gotta shower anyway.” He puts a steaming mug on the rickety kitchen counter. “Decaf. There’s eggs in the pan.”

“Thank you,” Maura says, and runs a hand over his arm in thanks as he passes her. “And thank you for letting me interrupt your night and--”

Frankie stops her with a kiss to her hair. Jane growls. “Anytime.” He goes into the bathroom, and after a moment the pipes squeal on. 

“I’m not going to apologize for this,” Jane says, crossing her arms across her chest. She leans against the wall and juts her hip out. “You need to take a day. And see your therapist.”

Maura sips her coffee to give herself a second to think. “Even so, that should be my decision. Let me make my own decisions.”

“Okay,” Jane says. “Unless your decision is stupid, and then I’m going to make it for you. Like I just did.”

“Fine. But if I have to see my therapist, you have to see yours.”

Jane scoffs. “You cannot be serious. And I don’t have a shrink.”

Maura tilts her head. “Jane. Please.”

Jane looks genuinely surprised. “How do you know that--” she gasps, moving around the counter towards Maura. “Do you all _talk_ to each other?”

“Of course not!” Maura grabs Jane’s hand. “That would be highly unethical.”

Jane nods, calming quickly. “Right. Of course.”

“And we’re friends.” Maura takes another sip. “I would never attempt to betray you like that.” She averts her eyes delicately, curling her fingers around hot porcelain. “Trust is the most important component in a relationship as strong and intimate as ours--”

“Okay,” Jane interrupts, “okay fine. So she told you.”

Maura breaks, smiles. “It was very sweet, in your own way. But please do not try to blackmail my therapist for information about me again.”

Jane sighs. “Fine. God. So you’ll stay home today?”

Maura nods. “Until my appointment. And you’ll….” she trails off in a question.

“Yes,” Jane huffs, “fine. God. C’mon, I’ll give you a ride home.” Maura shrugs on her jacket, wincing at the wrinkles. Jane kicks the door back open and swings her keys around a finger. “You know, maybe _they_ talk about _us_.”

“It’s possible,” Maura agrees, following Jane out the door. “Many therapists lose their licenses for violating confidentiality.” She closes the door behind her and checks to make sure she’d locked it correctly. It rattles in her hand. She starts to to turn away and stops. She reaches out and rattles it again, and then once more. She pulls her hand away and frowns at her own fingers.

“Really psyching me up to be honest with a shrink,” Jane grumbles from the down the hall. She hadn’t noticed, Maura realizes, and she stuffs her hand into her pocket as she scurries to catch up.

//

Maura sits in her car in the parking lot and frowns at the clock on her phone. It clicks over, and she’s officially late. Maura, generally, is ten to fifteen minutes early for scheduled affairs. Being late makes her itch, makes her sweat. Today she sits in the parking lot and thinks--she could use a coffee. She walks to a coffee shop two blocks away and realizes she hasn’t checked her emails in two days. She sips a latte (less caffeine, better for her) and responds to work related messages. She writes a quick message to her mother, and to Hope. She orders a regular coffee, two shots of espresso, and takes it back to her car.

She checks her phone again. It’s too late, she thinks, surely Melissa has other clients. She shoots an email off, apologizing and confirming their regular appointment time, in four days. She goes home.

//

“Coffee?” Kent has been very supportive since Maura’s abduction. He’s quieter, works harder, simply picking up the grinding tasks around the office Maura has let slip--overseeing sterilization, organizing instruments, filing test results and reports. 

“Thank you,” Maura says, caught in a moment of guilt and gratitude. She takes the cup and notes the logo on the side--it’s the good stuff, out of his way. It’s also her fifth cup in two hours. “I--I appreciate you very much, Kent.”

He looks surprised. He smiles, faint and muted. “Of course, Dr. Isles. This place, it just wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Maura feels another flush of guilt. Her phone buzzes--a text from Jane, asking how it went yesterday, if she’s free for lunch. Maura hesitates--lying through writing has always come easier for her, even before. She did pledge, that morning, eating eggs Frankie made her while Jane fussed in her Jane way, snarky digs and heavy sarcasm, not to lie again, but this--it’s not a lie. Maura is going to be completely truthful with Melissa at their next appointment. She tells Jane it was helpful and she’s feeling better, which, she thinks, is mostly true.

She locks herself in her office and drinks Kent’s gifted coffee. Her hands are starting to tremble, faintly, from the caffeine. She can feel her heartbeat in her chest, and she likes it. Every thump reminds her she’s alive.

She goes home and keeps the lights off, drawing the curtains closed and enjoying the dimness. She uncorks a bottle of wine and lets her fingers linger on the stem of a glass. Then she shrugs and takes the bottle into her bedroom, along with a glass of water and three aspirin from the bathroom medicine cabinet. She figures she’ll need them in the morning.

//

Jane brings her lunch. There’s no case, and it could be Jane avoiding paperwork, but Maura suspects Jane is still shaken from Maura at her door in the middle of the night, drunk and spouting nonsense.

“Kale,” Jane says enticingly, and unwraps her own cheeseburger. “I got that weird dressing you like.”

“Yogurt, dill, and olive oil is hardly exotic,” Maura says, accepting the plastic container of mixed greens. 

Jane makes a ‘W’ with her fingers and thumps a greasy cardboard cup of french fries on Maura’s desk. “Grease and salt is best for depression Maura, take it from me.”

It’s truth wrapped in a joke, and Maura pauses to process. “I’m not depressed,” she decides on. “I admit I had a difficult time the other night, but I’m sure it was an aberration.”

“Hm,” Jane says, clearly skeptical. “Eat your lawn clippings.” She flops into a chair and chews on a chunk of her burger, staring pointedly at Maura.

Maura smiles. She opens the salad and picks a piece of kale off with the tips of her nails, eating it raw. It bursts, bitter and sharply fresh on her tongue. Jane tosses a packet of dressing at her and Maura lets it land on her desk without attempting to catch it. She picks it up and uses her teeth to open it. There’s a loud bang from the room beyond her office, Kent’s surprised shout. She jerks, startled, and the jagged plastic cuts her lip.

“What the--” Jane hops up and leaves, investigating.

Maura sits, frozen. Her chair doesn’t feel like her chair, the perfect height for her desk, excellent lumbar support. It feels like rotting cloth stretched over a rusted frame, rocking under her weight while she stares into a video camera, grasping at what psychiatry she remembers from university, her own blood heavy on her tongue.

“False alarm,” Jane grumbles, coming back in and kicking the door shut with her heel. “Highlander over there dropped like, six trays.” She slurps at her soda, the straw rattling against the ice, and looks at Maura. “Hey--you okay?”

Maura doesn’t have time for a full sentence. “Emesis,” she says, not without urgency.

Jane blinks at her. “Really? I mean, Kent’s annoying, but I didn’t think you felt that strongly--”

“Not nemesis,” Maura grits, “ _emesis_.” She lunges for the trashcan. Bile burns down her throat as her diaphragm seizes. She vomits again, coffee and dry toast. Jane’s hand rubs her back, soothing. Cool fingers gather her hair up and pull it away from her face and neck. Maura retches.

Jane offers her a fistful of fast food napkins and Kleenex. Maura picks the Kleenex and wipes at her mouth. Blood and drool drag across the lotion scented tissue. “Talk to me,” Jane says quietly, crouched at her side.

Maura realizes she’s on her knees, the edge of her desk digging into her ribs. “I don’t,” she mumbles. “I’m not…” The cut on her lip throbs and she retches again, weakly. 

Jane presses a kiss to her sweaty temple. “It’s okay. Let’s just sit for a second.” She sits cross-legged on the small rug under Maura’s desk. “C’mere.”

Maura leans against her, and Jane wraps an arm around her shoulders. She pops the plastic lid off her soda and tosses it and the straw into the trashcan. She crunches an ice cube and offers Maura the cup. Maura sloshes ice into her mouth and uses her tongue to press it against her lip. It’s unbearably cold for a moment, painfully so, then blessedly numb. Weak cola and ice melt drip down her chin, and she wipes at with her wrist, clumsy.

“I couldn’t look at scalpels,” Jane confesses quietly, “not for months, after.” She drags a finger across Maura’s bottom lip, Maura feeling pressure instead of Jane’s warm skin, the drag of her fingerpad. She can see the faint scar on Jane’s palm, her blood dotted on Jane’s thumb. It’s a biological contagion, and she wants to tell Jane not to ever touch blood without gloves, but instead she looks at the bright red droplets contrasted against Jane’s skin and takes shuddering breaths until she feels her her heart thump in her chest to match Jane’s pulse in her fingers, her hand clenched around Jane’s wrist.

//

Jane takes her to a bar, the kind Maura likes, modern furniture and soft lighting. She stares at the wine list for a second and points to one mostly at random. There are no prices on the menu, and she makes a weak joke about her paycheck. Maura sits woodenly on the booth seat, allowing Jane the chair with the wall at her back, and feels oddly hollow. When the wine comes she holds a finger up to keep the waiter at the table and finishes the glass in long swallows. 

“Another,” she requests. The waiter doesn’t even blink, just nods and disappears into the back with her glass. He’s back in less than a minute with a fresh glass, deposited on the table in front of her. Maura reaches for it, and Jane catches her hand.

“Hey. Take it easy, huh?”

“Of course,” Maura says, switching her hand to a water glass. She drinks deeply, thinking about bile acidity and replenishing fluids.

Jane sips her own glass and tries to look like she wouldn't rather be holding a bottle of mediocre beer. “Feel an urge for French lullabies?”

“No,” Maura says, and drains half her glass. She looks around for the waiter. Her free hand drums her fingers against the tabletop, a nervous staccato. 

Jane catches her hand, then balances it on her own palm. Maura taps away, her nails dancing on Jane’s lifeline, on her scars. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Maura admits. “It’s… been difficult.” She takes another long drink.

“I’m worried about you,” Jane says, looking away before forcing their eyes together again. “For one, you’re kinda a lush.”

It startles a smile out of Maura. She draws her hands back into her lap, resisting the new urge to fidget. “I think I’m hardly the first to enjoy a drink after an ordeal.”

“I’m not judging,” Jane says simply, “I’m just worried.” She takes another sip and grimaces.

Maura finishes her drink, ignoring Jane’s worried eyebrows. “Let’s go.”

Jane looks faintly relieved. “Yes, good.” She pushes her glass behind one of the fancy table menu placards, out of sight. “I’ll drive you home.”

“The Dirty Robber,” Maura corrects. “I find I’m drawn to familiar environments. New places make me uncomfortable.” Instead of softly soothing, she finds the lighting here ominous, shadowy corners and strange faces. She wants the grungy rumble of the Dirty Robber, the half waves of police officers who recognize her, where her tab stays open because she’s a regular.

“Okay,” Jane says after a beat. “Yeah. I could use a beer.”

“Me too,” Maura says, firm.

//

Jane has half a beer. She nurses the other half, casting worried glances in Maura’s direction, and makes a slashing motion at the bartender after the third bottle lands empty on their small table. She waits until Maura totters back from the bathroom, musing absently on the bottling process and hops, then steers Maura to her car with a hand on her elbow.

“I wanted to see the end of the game,” Maura protests, smiling and loose limbed and Jane pours her into the passenger seat.

“It was a highlight reel,” Jane says, faintly exasperated. She slides into the driver’s side and turns the engine over. “Buckle your seatbelt.”

“Did you know,” Maura says, making no move to do so, “that the chances of a spinal injury went down by seventy percent with the addition of the shoulder strap to the lap belt?” She pauses. “Did I say that right?”

“Sure,” Jane says, leaning over to drag Maura’s seatbelt across her body. “How would I know?” She fumbles the catch, and Maura has time to catch a curl in her fingers, pull it straight and watch it spring back. The belt latches. Jane flicks on her headlights and pulls out onto the street.

Maura presses her face against the cool glass window. “Mmm. Click it or ticket.”

Jane shoots a sideways look at her. “It is good to see you relaxed.”

Maura is loose-limbed, tingly in the best way. Sadness and bad dreams seem very far away. “I suppose I realize the attraction of,” she pauses, searching for the right idiom, “sleeping in the bottlecap.”

Jane smiles a little, making a turn. The steering wheel slides through her hands, worn through at the bottom, where Jane likes to hold it. “Climbing in the bottle,” she corrects.

“1953,” Maura says, her eyes fluttering shut, “Number 2,649,311. Inspired by a 1948 Chrysler and a deer crossing.” She dozes.

The car slows after a while, stops. “C’mon Google Mouth,” Jane says. Maura’s door is open, the breeze ruffling her hair. It smells like it might rain tomorrow, water in the night air. 

“This is not my house,” Maura deduces, unsteady in her heels. Jane steadies her.

“Yeah,” she says, “keep me and Frankie company for tonight? You might need a little help tomorrow.”

“B12 vitamins,” Maura says, her head clearing slightly, “electrolytes.”

“Yeah,” Jane says, tugging her up to the door of the building. “We got Gatorade and children’s aspirin. Frankie has to chew his pills, the baby.”

Maura checks out for a few minutes, thinking about ibuprofen and acetaminophen. She draws their chemical structures in her mind, sharp lines and perfect polygons. As a student, she’d liked Chemistry almost more than Biology, although not quite as much as Anatomy. When she refocuses she’s sitting on Jane’s bed, and Jane is kneeling in front of her, cursing at the straps of her heels.

“Do you pay extra for frustration?”

“No,” Maura says, “for the brand-name recognition.”

Jane glares half-heartedly. “Oh? Back with the class, are we?”

Maura reaches back and undoes the zipper of her dress. She stands, pitching forward on one shoe, and Jane catches her. She wiggles, the dress slipping off her shoulders and pooling around her feet. She steps out of it, kicking her shoe away, leaving her in her underwear and silk slip. She crawls into Jane’s bed, sighing. When she cracks an eyelid Jane is scooping her dress off the floor. “What’re doing?”

“It’ll wrinkle,” Jane says, throwing one of her jackets aside to free up a hanger. She hangs the dress on the back of the door. “You’ll care tomorrow.” She grabs a wet wipe from her dressed and sits on the bed. “No raccoon eyes on my watch.” She wipes Maura’s face free of makeup, gentle. The wipe smells like cucumber. Jane tosses it aside and kicks off her own shoes.

“You’re a good friend,” Maura says, letting her eyes close. She stretches once, arching her back and flexing her toes. She sighs out, going boneless. A blanket settles over her, soft fleece.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Jane promises, sounding tired, and Maura falls asleep.

//

“Jane was overreacting,” Maura tells Melissa. “But it is nice, to have such a solid support system. I feel very lucky.” She hesitates. Melissa waits her out, patient. “I feel guilty,” she says reluctantly. “Jane has her own… worries. I don’t want to add to them.” Maura changes the topic, abruptly but firmly, and Melissa doesn’t fight it.

Towards the end of the appointment time, Melissa asks if Maura is still averaging three hours of sleep a night.

“No,” Maura is saying before she’s fully processed the question, “I’m up to nearly six now. Five point seven five.”

“Excellent,” Melissa enthused, genuinely pleased.

Maura sits in her car and avoids her own eyes in the rearview mirror. “That doesn’t mean anything,” she says to no one, and calls in sick. She stops at a high end health food store on her way home and buys a few bottles of wine.

//

Maura jerks awake at the sound of a closed fist pounding on her front door. She sits up on the couch, a headache pounding away behind her eyes, disoriented. She fumbles her phone, dropping it on the floor, the screen flicks to life, and she grabs it in a clumsy fist, tripping to her feet. She kicks the blanket away and staggers to the front door.

Korsak looks unduly relieved to see her. Maura knows she must look a disaster. “She’s here,” Korsak is saying into his phone. “She’s fine. I’ll bring her.” His phone slips into his front pocket. “You didn’t answer your phone. Everything okay?”

Maura avoids answering by keying in her lockcode. Sixteen missed calls. “I overslept,” she says, which is completely true. “Jane?”

“Freaked,” Korsak says simply. “There’s a case, if you’re feeling up to it.” He smiles at her.

“Let me change,” Maura says.

//

Jane takes one look at Maura’s outfit (black slacks, a sweater that hangs a little big on her frame, the sleeves too loose, hair in a ponytail, flats) and raises an eyebrow. “Slept in the bottlecap?”

“Drinks with a friend,” Maura says, which isn’t a lie, if someone were to count Anderson Cooper as a friend.

Jane’s look sharpens. “Liar.” There’s an edge of surprise in her voice. 

“Everyone lies, Jane,” Maura says, dark and hollow. Jane’s body goes tense. Maura breaks eye contact and kneels by the corpse.

She pulls on gloves, letting the silence get heavy and frustrated. “Blunt force trauma,” she reports; she carefully turns over the corpse, no not the corpse, the “--post 30 female, five six, dead for at least four hours--”

“So time of death is about the same as when you killed your last drink? When was that, Dr. Isles?” Maura glares, and Jane glowers back. “For the official report.”

“Contusions,” Maura reports, ignoring her and speaking directly to Korsak, who seems a little oddfooted to be the sole focus of her attention, Jane starting to seethe to the side. “Ligature marks.”

A technician calls her away for a moment, and when she returns Jane and Korsak are hissing to one another. They fall abruptly silent when she draws near. “The body is ready for transfer. I’ll have an officer drive me to the morgue.”

“Oh no,” Jane says, “ _please_. Let me have the pleasure.”

“No thank you,” Maura says politely. “You seem in an unusually bad mood today.” She pauses. “Usually.”

Jane’s eyes narrow. Maura walks towards the crime scene tape and Jane lets her longer stride loop passed and ahead of Maura, holding up the tape for her to walk under. “Please, let me. How’s that for a usual mood?”

“Heavy sarcasm,” Maura says, in a faintly detached tone, “the benchmark of a generally cheery person.”

“How have you lived your whole life without being punched in the face?”

“Are you finding it difficult to relate to someone who has never committed violence?” Maura asks, and it knocks Jane back enough that she makes it to a patrol officer. “Would you be so kind as to drive me to the morgue, Officer Pauli?”

It’s a young officer Maura has seen around before. His eyes dilated when he saw her in heels and a dress; once he brought her coffee while they waited for divers to fish her victim from below the freeway. He flushes to be the sole recipient of her attention. “Of course, Dr. Isles,” he stammers. She follows him to a patrol car and he walks around to open the door for her, still faintly pink along his cheekbones. He gets the door about two inches open before Jane’s hand slaps on the white paint, closing it with a slam. She doesn’t look at him.

“Beat it, rookie,” she snaps. Officer Pauli retreats quickly, disappointed. Jane yanks the door back open, makes a short gesture.

“I think--” Maura starts, attempting a retreat. She doesn’t remember why they’re fighting, except that Jane gets angry when she’s truly worried and Maura chafes when her word is doubted.

“Get in the car,” Jane says, eyes flat.

Maura presses her lips together and slides into the passenger seat. She crosses her arms across her chest. “Fine.”

“Wow,” Jane marvels falsely, “amazing.”

“That didn’t make sense,” Maura says, staring out the front of the windshield.

“You don’t make sense,” Jane snaps, and slams the door.

They drive in silence, restless under their own skins. Jane throws the parking brake in place harder than she has to, and Maura opens the door and gets out even though she sees Jane has just opened her mouth, looking reconciliatory. Jane huffs, hustling out after her and shadowing her into the morgue. Maura walks into her office, shedding her jacket and her purse on the desk and balancing on one leg to slip one shoe off, then the other. She slips out of her pants and blouse with the practiced ease of a flexible person who frequently wears high end fashion and lets them slide down her body, puddle at her feet. She steps out of them and scoops them up to adjust on a hanger.

“Oh my god,” Jane hisses, hurrying in and shutting the door behind her. “Why are you naked?”

“How,” Maura says, hanging the blouse on a hook and finding a folded set of scrubs where she usually keeps them, “do you think I dress when I autopsy bodies?” She slips her crocs on and flexes her toes, enjoying the cushioned comfort.

Jane closes the blinds with frantic jerks of her hands. “I didn’t think you let the whole morgue get a free show.”

“There’s no one here,” Maura says, putting her hair in a tighter ponytail. “Does my semi-nudity offend your sensibilities?”

“You wish,” Jane says, turning around to prop her hands on her hips, “then your swooning couch might finally be useful.”

They’ve had this argument before, but Maura still can’t keep a thread of indignation out of her voice. “It’s not a _swooning_ couch, it’s--”

“No one cares!” Jane bursts. They fall silent, breathing hard from frustration, glaring at nobody. Jane turns around, lifting her hands up and flexing her fingers like she’s strangling someone small and invisible. She takes a breath and when she faces Maura again she looks calm, a little of that kicked puppy look she gets when she’s about to apologize.

Maura feels a flush of guilt. “I’m sorry,” she says, before Jane can. “I’m was in a poor mood, and I took it out on you.”

Jane shrugs. “It’s not like I’m never guilty of the same.”

“Still,” Maura says. She slides into one of the chairs in front of her desk and rubs her temples. “I’m just not feeling well.” A lock of hair falls into her face and she sighs. She’ll have to redo the whole ponytail. She pulls the elastic off and Jane takes it from her, their fingers tangling briefly.

“Does it have anything to do with a wine headache?” Her fingers trail through Maura’s hair, nails scratching her scalp lightly as she gathers it up into a bun.

“Maybe,” Maura admits, tilting her head into Jane’s careful ministrations.

“I don’t like it,” Jane says, her voice going quiet. She threads the elastic through Maura’s hair, tightening carefully. “You at home, drinking alone.”

“I was letting off steam,” Maura says, “I’m hardly an alcoholic.”

“Just a liar?”

Maura pulls away sharply. “I wasn’t lying.” Jane doesn’t rise to the argument, and the fight fades from Maura as quickly as it had come. “I may have been stretching the truth.”

“I’m a cop,” Jane says, leaning on the edge of Maura’s desk. “And that’s what liars say.”

Maura shakes her head a little. “I don’t feel myself. Maybe it’s for the best if we take some… distance from one another. I don’t want it to affect our job performance.”

Jane looks uncertain for the first time since Maura slipped out of Korsak’s car. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“I think I need some time,” Maura says. She is surprised at how calm she sounds. She thinks she may be experience mild dissociation. “I think you need some too.”

“You don’t feel safe around me,” Jane ventures, half question half resignation. She’s clearly projecting, and it’s not accurate. Maura should correct her, reassure her, do something other than sit in her chair, staring at her bookcase, organized by the Dewey decimal system, and let Jane swallow, and swallow, and swallow.

//

Maura throws herself into work, giving Kent a short vacation. She performs autopsies all day long, her skin cracking from the soap and scrubbing, her own voice keeping her company as she makes observation and clinical notes.

She forwards reports and results using her department issued tablet and sometimes in printed form, via a few assistants. Korsak comes down sometimes, cheery and bright and sometimes with a snack that tastes like Angela’s cooking.

She’s been avoiding Angela, using the side door and keeping herself in her bedroom with the door closed and the lights out. Angela lets herself in a few times, but Maura keeps distance between them using the weapons she learned as a child: polite indifference and a faintly distracted air, always heading away to do something more important than talk to someone of no consequence.

She works late one night, finishing the last notes on a child victim, six year old boy, beaten to death by something that matches the bruise pattern and indentation of a hammer. She strips away his brain matter on her gloves and prepares everything to be cleaned. She signs the official forms-- _Designation: Homicide_ \--and places it to be filed appropriately, sends a digital version to the pertinent detectives. She walks through the building, turning lights off as she goes, and into the parking lot, still in scrubs, enjoying the muted buzz of activity, the cold night air.

She stops at a diner for a coffee, where the waitress mistakes her for a nurse and tells Maura about her cousin, an emergency nurse at General. Maura allows the slight deception and gets a free coffee for it. She tips double the price of one coffee and goes home. It’s almost three by the time she’s fitting her key into her lock; she has to be back by seven-thirty, and she’s so tired that when she sees a man in her kitchen it takes her a full four seconds to start to scream.

//

“Sorry,” Frankie apologizes again, sitting at her counter. “I was going to wait outside, but it was kinda cold.”

Maura finds a gel pack behind the ice trays and rolls it between her hands to make it more malleable. “And I’m sorry… for. You know.” She hands him the pack and he presses it to the bridge of his nose, already starting to puff up.

“S’okay,” Frankie says, “I’m glad you got the juice to break a guy’s nose.”

“It’s not broken,” Maura corrects. She wrings her hands.

“Stop,” Frankie says, reaching out and stilling nervous fingers. “It’s okay.”

“I assaulted you,” Maura says mournfully. “I’m afraid I’m not dealing with my circumstances as well as I’d hoped.”

Frankie shrugs. “There’s no normal with this stuff. I think you’re doing fine.”

“You’re here because of Jane. Snooping through my recycling?” It’s catty and rude and Frankie doesn’t deserve any of it.

Frankie shrugs again, smiling. Instant forgiveness through compassion, a trademark of his family. “She’s my sister, and you’re family. And you’re both suffering, and it’s pretty dumb, and I thought we’d gotten over the phase where Jane walks into a room, sighs repeatedly while raging internally, and walks out.”

Jane as a teenager, Maura imagines fondly.

“I appreciate your concern,” she says. “Are you recovered enough to drive?”

“Yeah I can take a hint,” Frankie says, standing. “But after the reasonable one,” he gestures to himself, “comes the Rizzoli crazy.” He points towards Angela. “Nobody wants that.”

//

Jane sidles into her office, biting her lip. She’s holding a white box. “Cannoli,” she says, “from the place you pretend not to like.”

Maura looks up from a chart. She hesitates. “Jane.”

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Jane says, walking over and carefully depositing the box on Maura’s desk. “But you know you can, right? So eat these and… well, if you could keep beating up Frankie, that would really cheer me and Korsak up immensely.”

Maura reaches out to touch the thin yellow ribbon keeping the box shut. She picks at it, feeling the pressure against her fingerpad and the vibrations when she strums it. “I can’t eat these.”

Jane’s shoulders slump in defeat. “Yeah, okay.”

“By myself,” Maura finishes. She smiles. Jane raises an eyebrow.

“Aren’t you just pleased with yourself,” she says, cautious teasing.

“I got you,” Maura says smugly. She undoes the ribbon and opens the box, then pulls open a drawer in her desk, producing two forks.

“No way,” Jane says, flopping into a chair and slouching to a comfortable level. She reaches out and scoops a cannoli. “Finger food.”

“Nothing is finger food,” Maura says, not for the first time.

//

They orbit around each other for a week, a layer of awkward over every interaction. They’re off sync in a way that’s faint but jarring, and Maura wakes one night from a dream about doing Suzie’s autopsy and realizes she’s bitten her nails down to the quick.

Ten seconds after Maura gets the call for a body in an abandoned warehouse, her phone buzzes again. “Hey,” Jane says. Maura turns the engine over and Jane’s voice drops for a second, coming back over the bluetooth system. “--no need,” Jane is saying.

“No need for what?”

“I already called Kent,” Jane says, impatient when she has to repeat herself. “Just meet me back at the morgue in a few hours. Get me a coffee.”

“I certainly will not,” Maura huffs, maneuvering around angry morning drivers. “I’m already on my way. I know we’re fighting, but I can’t believe you’d rather work with Kent than me.”

Jane makes several strangled noises. “Why do you always have to fight me when I’m trying to be nice--wait a minute, we’re fighting?”

Maura rolls her eyes at no one. “I’ll talk to you when I get there.”

//

Maura knows why Jane didn’t want her to come. The warehouse is old, and cold, and abandoned, and the body’s in a tunnel. Maura walks through, not looking at the old pipes dripping along the walls, and trying not to remember stumbling in the dark, blood dripping down her fingers where they’re clutched too tight around jagged glass.

“Maura,” Jane hovers at her elbow, anxious, and when Maura stops by the body Jane walks into her shoulder, rebounding awkwardly. 

Maura sighs. She crouches carefully and starts her preliminary investigation. “Morning,” Korsak says. He hands Jane a coffee. “No stimulants,” he says to Maura, apologetic. Then he grins, “Just kidding.” He offers her a white cup, still steaming.

“Korsak!” Jane glares. “I told you, no coffee for Maura.”

“Don’t micromanage, Jane.” Maura lifts an arm and checks for ligature marks. There’s a cut on the victim’s palm, and she has hair like Maura’s, dark but lightened with dye, skin just a shade darker than Maura’s. They’re the same height and build. Maura wonders who would have done her autopsy. She doesn’t think Kent could handle it, and she hopes they wouldn’t let Pike have the pleasure.

Jane elbows Korsak and he jars into action. “Dr. Isles?”

Maura curls her fingers into her palm, one at a time, feeling the individual pressure. She pushes herself back in the moment, noting the differences between herself and the victim--at least four years age difference, darker eyes, slight deviations in bone structure and muscle definition. She takes a deep breath and starts to outline what she knows.

//

Jane sneaks Maura’s keys out of her bag while Maura’s talking to the EMTs. She waits until Maura’s at the car before sliding into the driver’s seat.

Maura resists the urge to roll her eyes again. She gets in on the passenger’s side. “Has anyone ever told you that you can be passive aggressive?”

Jane flicks her sunglasses on and turns the ignition over. “Usually just ‘aggressive,’ but since we’re _fighting_ I wanted to play by your rules.”

Maura ignores her for a second, musing quietly on her mental to do list. “If I died, who do you think would be assigned my autopsy?”

Jane veers suddenly before straightening out. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

Maura shrugs, resting an elbow on the door. “The victim looks a little like me, don’t you think? Died in the same place I--”

“You didn’t die,” Jane interrupts, face scrunched up in anger and a touch of fear.

“Yes,” Maura replies, “I’m aware. But if I had, who do you think would have the honors?”

“Ugh,” Jane says, “not Kent.”

“Thanks. Not Pike either, got it?”

Jane half smiles. “I would never let that happen.”

“I’m the Chief Medical Examiner,” Maura says, indignant. “I would hope the Governor would bring in someone reputable.”

“I’ll check their resume personally,” Jane says dryly, but she’s definitely smiling now.

“And their published works,” Maura says, “only the peer-reviewed.”

“Well,” Jane says, grinning, “ _obviously_.”

//

 

“I hear you two are fighting,” Angela says, deceptively casual. Before Jane can blow her off with sarcasm she shoves a banana chocolate muffin into her hands. 

“You can’t bribe your way out of this,” Jane grumbles, but she’s already pulling the foil away and opening her mouth for a bite. “We’re not fighting,” she says through a mouthful of crumbs. 

“You’re not _not_ fighting,” Angela scolds. “Get it together Janey, you girls need each other too much to let small things divide you.” Small things like kidnapping and attempted murder.

“Thanks Ma,” Jane says, “now that I know the true meaning of Christmas, Maura and I will make up. The nuptials will be in July.”

“Don’t knock summer weddings,” Angela says, already heading away from Jane’s desk. “Your father and I were married in November, and look how that turned out.”

//

“I hate fighting with you,” Jane blurts out, storming Maura’s office and kicking the door shut behind her. “It’s confusing, and the worst.”

Maura looks up from her desk. “Are we still fighting?”

Jane blows out a sigh big enough to flutter her hair. “I don’t know. Here, Ma sent this. And the knowledge that you’re her favorite daughter.”

“Two mothers is quite enough, I think,” Maura says, another lie. “This is half a muffin.”

“ _Two_ half a muffins. Your elevator is slow,” Jane says, “and I only like the tops anyway.” Maura smiles. “Can we come to a consensus on the fighting?”

“I vote no fight,” Maura says, standing and reaching for her jacket.

Jane beats her to it, helps Maura into her coat. “I second. Dinner?”

“I had a big lunch,” Maura defers, then hesitates. “I have that beer you like?”

Jane looks relived. “Sold. Let’s go.”

//

Maura goes into her room to slip off her heels, rolling her ankles until they crack and wiggling her toes into her thickest, fluffiest wool socks. When she pads out to the kitchen Jane’s head is stuck in her fridge. She comes out with a beer and a bottled juice.

“Had visitors lately?”

“Not really,” Maura says absently, taking the juice and opening the fridge again. “This is for replenishing electrolytes after exercise.” She fishes out another beer and pops it open on the bottle opener mounted on the wall.

“A few already missing from that six pack, huh?” Jane is forcibly casual.

“You were right,” Maura says, pausing for a long pull, “when you told me beer is relaxing. I should have listened to you a long time ago.”

“Right,” Jane says. She picks at the label on her own bottle and frowns. “Ma says you’re going through wine more than usual.”

Maura narrows her eyes for a moment. “No she didn’t.”

“Well now I’m saying it.”

“Alcohol is a relaxant,” Maura says, moving to her pantry cabinet to lean against it. “I find myself stressed of late.”

“Right.” Jane doesn’t stop frowning. “Okay, but I’m concerned. You don’t need to drink to get through this.”

Maura takes another drink, longer than the first, and watches Jane watch her, concern etched in her face. She keeps going, something sparking at the way Jane’s frown grows with every second. She tips the last drop out and puts the bottle by the sink to recycle later. Jane’s mouth is a straight, thin line. Maura puts her hand on the fridge handle and Jane’s eyes narrow. Maura takes out another beer, pops the cap off, and takes a long, lingering swallow.

Jane clunks her beer on the counter harder than necessary. “Okay, you know what? Now we’re fighting.” She slams the door behind her and Maura stands in her kitchen, her fingers white around the bottle.

She finishes both their beers and falls asleep with the television on.

//

Maura sits at Jane’s desk and frowns at the wall until Jane arrives, wind wild hair and bags under her eyes. “Good morning.”

Jane hesitates. “Good morning.”

“Usually when we fight we yell at each other,” Maura says.

Jane bites her lip, her hands on her hips. “I don’t want to yell at you,” she says.

Maura touches a pile of forms and folders on Jane’s desk. “I did your paperwork,” she says, because she doesn’t want Jane to yell at her either.

Jane’s eyes go wide. “You know how to fill out police forms?”

“It’s hardly rocket science, Jane. Consider it a gesture.” She stands, picking up her purse. “We’ll talk later?” Jane nods, still startled into silence.

 

Jane catches her waiting for the elevator. She catches Maura by the elbow and steers her into a storage closet. Maura looks around as she closes the door. “How many of these are there?”

“BPD needs a lot of pens,” Jane says, yanking on the chain to turn on the dim bulb. “Listen Maura. You’re not dealing okay. You think you are, but you’re really, really not.”

Maura glares. “I’m fine. I’m writing in my journal, I’m using techniques, I’m talking to my--”

“Liar,” Jane says, and Maura falls abruptly silent, eyes wide and shocked. “You’re lying, and you’re drinking, and you’re having panic attacks. You’re waking up screaming.” Maura’s jaw snaps shut. She turns away, crossing her arms across her chest and hugging herself tightly. “Maybe you’re thinking about what would happen if you died, and thinking eventually everyone might be better off without you.” She pulls Maura around, gentle. “It would be okay. I would not be okay.” She swipes at her eyes with one hand, looking away. “Or, uh. I guess you’re finally embracing the Irish in you.”

Maura catches Jane’s hand and tangles their fingers together. “I would not be okay without you either.”

They both look at the wall for a while. “Well,” Jane says, “as long as we're in agreement.” She pulls Maura into a hug, firmly enough they tip off balance, Maura bumping into the wall as Jane leans her weight against her, ducking her head into Maura’s neck. Her breath is hot and damp, and she sounds suspiciously sniffly. Maura feels her arms around Jane’s waist, her hands splayed on Jane’s ribcage, feeling it expand under her fingers, their breaths matching.

//

Maura is unflinchingly honest with Melissa. She wrings her hands in her lap the entire time she’s talking. The heel of her shoe rattles on the floor. “Maura,” Melissa says. She stops for a second, and seems to make a decision. “I’d like to try something a little different, if you’re amenable?”

“I’m not only ameable,” Maura says, “I’m eager.”

“Good.” Melissa stands and crosses to her filing cabinet. She rummages through a drawer. “There’s a blank legal pad under the magazine on the table, there, and pens on my desk. In case you want to take notes.”

“Notes?” Maura collects the materials, puzzled.

“You’ll have to do without slides,” Melissa continues “--aha, here it is--because there’s no way to project them here. I can email them later, if you’d like.” She turns, holding a thick manuscript. “My thesis.”

//

“I realized,” Maura tells Jane two days later at dinner, lounging on Maura’s sofa instead of at the table or breakfast bar, “that I do need to understand what I’m going through as a doctor. In depth research has assured me that not only am I not alone in my symptoms, but that statistically there is an excellent recovery rate.” She beams at Jane, who’s looking at her bright eyed, indulgent. “I’m very optimistic.”

“Good,” Jane says. “Now eat your dinner.” She pauses, horrified. “It’s happening. I’m turning into my mother.”

Maura rolls her eyes. “I think you’ve a way to go yet.” She puts her plate aside and watches Jane shovel baked ziti into her mouth, chew with her mouth open. Something flutters in Maura’s chest. “Thank you, Jane. Your friendship… it means so much to me.”

Jane swallows. She smiles. Then she bursts into tears. Maura dives across the couch, catching Jane’s plate before it can spill. She rescues the glass of wine at Jane’s elbow and puts them out of reach. “Jane?” She gathers Jane up in a loose embrace. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Jane sobs. Maura tightens her grip. “You were,” Jane says between sucking gasps, “and now.”

Maura tucks a few locks of hair behind Jane’s ear, rolling a finger through the curl. She lets Jane shake everything out. “I think you’re exhausted. And that I’ve been worrying you.”

“Who’s worrying?” Jane hiccups, “I’m not worrying.” She slouches all the way into the cushions. “Don’t tell anyone at work about this.”

“Cross your heart,” Maura says. She drags a finger over the cheap fabric of Jane’s shirt, over the left breast pocket.

“It’s my heart,” Jane mumbles. 

“I know where your heart is, I’m a doctor.”

“No, it’s _my_. Nevermind.” Jane draws a little heart with her fingernail on Maura’s knee. “Cross your heart too.”

Maura lets herself slide down and lean her head on the armrest. Jane swings her legs up until she’s lying horizontal, her weight heavy and reassuring against Maura’s body. “You need remedial biology,” Maura says, because it will make Jane smile. “And anatomy.” Jane murmurs something into the sofa, drooling a little. Maura closes her eyes.

//

She dreams she’s lying on a blanket, in the grass. She’s wearing shorts that hang too long and too boyish off her hips and a hockey jersey tied up below her sternum. It’s something she wouldn’t be caught dead even looking at, but in the dream she stretches, arching her back the way she used to do in ballet class as a little girl, and cracks her knuckles. She’s sunwarm, the breeze ruffling across her skin.

//

Maura wakes first, this time. She touches Jane’s sleeping face, an index finger to the wrinkle between Jane’s eyebrows. “Mmph,” Jane says, batting her hand. “What time is it?”

“Half past the hour,” Maura says, rolling her head around to ease the discomfort in her neck. 

Jane rolls her eyes. “Which hour?”

“Six.”

“Ugh.” Jane puts her arm over her eyes. “Wake me when someone dies.” On cue, their phones begin buzzing, Maura’s on the table, Jane’s in her pocket, pressed awkwardly against their joined hips. Jane opens her eyes and blinks. “Wake me when I win a million dollars.” She waits a second. “Do you think it worked?”

Maura smiles at her. “Isles,” she says into her phone.

Jane grins, dragging a hand through her hair to shove it over one shoulder. She fishes her phone out of her pocket. “Rizzoli,” she answers.

//

“How do you mistake a dead body,” Jane complains on the back from a children’s playground. “And how do you mistake it so badly they call in homicide and the medical examiner before you figure out it’s a sleeping bag and a pile of roadkill.”

“You’d think the fur would be a giveaway,” Maura agrees. She points out the windshield. “The doughnut shop Korsak likes!”

“Fine,” Jane grumbles, veering sideways into a turning lane.

“The police handbook,” Maura says. Jane flaps her fingers at her.

“Don’t start with me about signals, Maura, I need cream filling in my mouth yesterday.” 

“That’s what she said!” Maura cries triumphantly.

Jane snort laughs, Maura’s favorite. She’s grinning, leaning across the console for a high five. “That’s pretty good Maura. Where you get that one?”

“Cailin,” Maura says, still buoyed by success. Jane pulls into a parking space and yanks the hand brake as she kills the engine. “Who is ‘she’ exactly?”

Jane laughs again. “C’mon funny gal, I’ll buy you an old-fashioned.”

Maura puts her hand on the door handle and stops. Her nail polish is chipped, on her thumb. First, she thinks she needs to redo it tonight, maybe a different color on one finger than the rest, the way Cailin had it at their last coffee date. Then she thinks she might as well repaint the whole hand. Then she remembers her fingers, dirty and cold, curled limply around the chain of the cuffs, cramped around the pole she’d been secured to. Her vision goes spotty, and she puts her head between her knees.

She hears Jane’s knuckles rap on the window, and then the wind as she yanks the door open. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s really loud,” Maura says, because it is, suddenly. The cars rattling on the roads sound like his footsteps as she crouched against the tunnel wall, blood-slippery glass clutched in her palms. 

“Okay,” Jane says. The door bangs shut. The driver’s side opens and Jane crawls in. “Take my hand,” she says.

Maura does, gripping too tight. She tries to lessen her hold, and Jane clutches even harder. She feels Jane’s pulse beating against her thumb. It’s a little fast, even for the situation. Maura has always worried about Jane’s blood pressure. “No doughnuts,” she mumbles.

“Yeah,” Jane says, “I got that.”

//

Maura brings Jane blood results personally. It’s because she wants to reassure Jane she’s fine, she thinks to herself, not because she picked up a scalpel an hour ago and remembered Hoyt sitting on top of her, slicing her open. “No match to your suspect,” she says, dropping the folder on Jane’s desk. Jane jumps, and immediately tries to cover what she was reading with her hands. Maura yanks it away. It’s her printouts about PTSD, the ones Angela had seen. Maura gasps.

“She _told_ you?”

Jane shrugs, seemingly unconcerned. “Of course she told me. It’s Ma.”

“When?”

“Like five seconds after she saw them. Have you even met my mother?” Maura fumes. “She’s worried about you,” Jane assuages. “So she snoops. It’s how she shows affection.”

“It was a breach of trust.” Maura tosses the papers back on Jane’s desk, and they nudge her mouse. The dark computer screen wakes up with a beep, displaying top google search results for “how help someone having a panic attack”. Maura points. “Breach of trust!”

Jane catcher her accusing hand. “She says you’re not eating, not sleeping.”

Maura tries to pull away and can’t. “It’s---it’s a process.”

“You said you were feeling better.”

“I was!” Maura sucks in a deep breath. “I am. I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Just assume I’m worrying,” Jane says, rubbing her thumb between her eyebrows. “24/7, 365 a year.”

Maura bats her hand away and rolls her fingers on Jane’s temples, scratching her nails lightly down the base of her skull. Jane groans, settling with a happy sigh. “I worry about you,” Maura says, gently reproving.

“You call me out, I’ll call you out,” Jane says, “just don’t stop doing what you’re doing.”

“Ew,” Frankie says, coming around the corner, “keep it in your pants, Rizzoli.”

“Fuck off,” Jane says, eyes drifting closed, “I’ve had this migraine for an hour and a half.”

Maura pulls her hands away. Jane sits up, makes a distressed, sad noise. “Penalty for language,” Maura says.

“Hey,” Frankie says, cheering, “sports analogy!” He offers Maura a fist.

“Oh,” Maura says, “I know this.” She gingerly touches her knuckles to his.

“It’s a start,” Frankie says. He scoops the file folder off Jane’s desk. “This the bloodwork?”

“It’s not a match,” Jane says smugly. “Karma.” Frankie sticks his tongue out at her.

//

“We didn’t finish our conversation.” Jane barges into Maura’s kitchen at half past nine, holding a pastry box. She holds up the box like an offering. “Those French fruit things you like.” Maura gets plates and forks. Jane takes the plate but not the utensil. “Pastries are finger food. We’ve talked about this.”

“We did not agree.”

“Mm.” Jane takes a huge bite, exaggerated. “Did you eat dinner?” It’s forced casual. 

“Yes,” Maura says, then reconsiders. “Sort of.”

“No problem,” Jane says cheerfully. She produces a paper bag from behind her leg. “Cos I brought cheesesteaks!”

“Hm,” Maura says, balking.

Jane sighs. “With _spinach_ and mushrooms.”

Maura brightens. “Oh. How fresh is the spinach?”

“ _So_ fresh,” Jane says, painfully dry.

Maura brandishes a fork at her. “Dinner requires cutlery.”

Halfway through her sandwich, Jane already working on her second fruit tart, Maura engages. “Sleeping is hard. But I’m being honest with Melissa and myself, and I’m writing in my journal.”

“You could call me,” Jane offers.

“You need rest too,” Maura argues.

“If you’re not resting I’m not resting.” Jane’s got her stubborn face on.

“Only if you call me when you’re not sleeping,” Maura negotiates.

Jane pulls a face. “Fine, whatever. Eat your stupid freedom tart.”

//

Maura sits awake. She hasn’t written in her journal, because she wrote the same dream down three days ago, and she doesn’t feel writing it for the third time will yield any new data. She makes tea: herbal, soothing, recommended by insomniacs. She blows across the surface to feel hot steam on her skin. She touches her phone’s home button and watches the minute change. She sits at the counter and lays her face on the cold stone.

She wakes up screaming, her lip bleeding. She tastes and blood and shoves herself away, panicked. She falls over the edge of the stool and bangs painfully into the floor. 

“Maura!” Jane jackknifes over the back of the sofa, fumbling for gun. Maura’s scream ratchets higher in surprise. The back door bangs open and Angela charges, wielding a frying pan. Jane’s shout of surprise matches Maura’s. Angela yells back. “Stop, stop, _stop it_ ,” bellows Jane. She slashes her hand through the air. “Everyone stop.”

Maura stands, wincing. “Angela?”

“Sounded like you were being murdered,” Angela says, eyes wide.

“So you call the police,” Jane snaps at her, “now--go away, Rambo. Maura and I are talking.”

“Don’t upset Maura,” Angela says, lowering the pan. “She’s having nightmares, you know.”

“I had no idea,” Jane says, exaggerating surprise. Angela bangs the door shut.

“What were you doing here?” Maura crosses the room and catches sight of the rumpled pillow, thin blanket. She props her hands on her hips. “How long have you been sleeping here?”

“Since you started practicing for sorority slasher films,” Jane snaps. She puts her gun on the counter. “I thought you were gonna call me?”

“I thought you slept in beds,” Maura counters.

Jane nods decisively. “Yes. Excellent point.” She goes down the hall.

“Wha--Jane!” Maura trails her. Jane goes into the guest bedroom and flops across the unmade mattress, face first. “That’s not made.”

“Don’t care.” Jane’s voice is muffled by the mattress.

“It’s not made,” Maura insists, pulling at Jane’s ankle. “Get up.”

“Ugh!” Jane flies upright and stomps out, “you are so picky!”

She goes into Maura’s room and crawls under the duvet. Maura follows, automatically flicking off the light. “Better discerning than a peeping Tom.” She lies close enough to Jane to feel her body heat.

“More of a stalker,” Jane yawns. She throws an arm across Maura’s hips and smashes her face into the pillow. “Much classier.”

Maura would like to argue more but her heart has finally stopped pounding, and she doesn’t feel the need to stare at her bedroom window, terrified of a face peering through the blinds. “Mm,” she says, drowsy. Jane snores a little, and Maura tilts her head until she can feel Jane exhale against her cheek.

//

The next night Jane wanders in with a duffel bag, disappears into the bathroom, and comes out in pajamas. Maura makes her a cup of tea and Jane muses about possible motives on a cold case she’s working on. Jane falls asleep while Maura reads a medical journal.

Angela makes them bunny pancakes in the morning, and Jane drowns hers in maple syrup, the expensive kind Maura has shipped from Vermont. She sweet talks Maura into two strips of bacon and they go to work together, Jane licking syrup off the steering wheel at stoplights.

//

Maura cooks when Jane cracks the case and falls asleep for sixteen straight hours. She rolls pasta by hand, and Angela makes sauce behind her on the stove. Frankie shows up with a green bean casserole and drags Jane out of the bedroom to prop her up in a chair. Angela serves up the plates and says Grace, praying for Jane’s protection while she slaps Jane’s hands away from the garlic bread. 

Maura brushes her teeth twice (garlic) and gets distracted by pertinent facts--how much bacteria can grow on brush bristles. Then she has to go to the closet and find Jane a new toothbrush. Five minutes after that, and they’re lying on their backs beside each other, Jane rubbing her belly ruefully. “Food coma,” she mumbles. Maura’s eyes shoot open. She opens her mouth. “I know it’s not a real coma, Maura, relax.”

Maura relaxes. “Your family is very kind to treat me the way they do.”

“You’re a doctor,” Jane says sleepily, “of course you’re the favorite. Mom brags about you to third cousins.”

There’s a thump from the living room, Frankie’s muttered cursing. Maura stills Jane when she moves to get up. “You’re not the only one who worries. We can talk to him in the morning.”

“He used to follow me around when we were kids,” Jane says, dozing off, “sticky fingers.” Her voice has a thread of fondness that isn’t there when she talks about Tommy. Maura hums. When she closes her eyes she has a flash--the start of her recurring nightmare. She forces her eyes open and listens to Jane breathe, watches the numbers roll past on the clock on her nightstand.

//

“I thought you were ‘avoiding stimulants’,” Jane puts on a fake accent when she imitates Maura, and it’s enough for Maura to smile as she adds cream and sugar to her coffee.

“My sleeping patterns have changed,” Maura says, which isn’t a lie. She’s promised herself not to go back down that route. “And I miss coffee.”

“Do you still have decaf?” Jane rummages through a cabinet. “Frankie could use a little less stimulation.”

“Leave him alone,” Maura casts a fond look to the couch, where Frankie is stretched out, mouth open, snoring loudly. Jane snorts again.

//

Maura wakes from a nightmare with a start, she thinks she’d be screaming if there were any breath in her lungs. She gasps a little, sucking down air, thinking about how quick brain cells die when deprived with oxygen. Jane murmurs lowly from behind her, voice husky and rough. “Maur?” Her name is sleep slurred, Jane’s hand on her back. “You okay?”

Maura takes a deep breath and feels her heart rate slow to something approaching normal. “Yeah,” she says, easing herself down on the mattress. “Just--you know.” The sheets smell like Jane and her, mixed together, and she noses into her pillow. Jane pulls her closer, spooning her.

“S’okay,” Jane says, half-asleep, “you’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Maura says. She curls up, tucking her limbs together like Bass in his shell when it thunderstorms. She shivers, her sweat leaving her chilled. Jane presses a palm against her belly, Maura’s shirt riding up enough to feel Jane’s bare fingers on her skin. With gentle, unyielding pressure, she nudges Maura’s legs down from where they’re pressed up to her chest, then snakes it up Maura’s chest to link their arms together. Maura falls asleep wrapped up in Jane, their feet brushing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still no beta, and I'm sorry it's moving slowly... hitting a block on ideas, if you've got any ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I had written on this when I stalled out--it might feel rough, and unfinished, but it is closure.

“I’m in court all day today,” Jane tells her at breakfast, eating bacon out of the pan with the tips of her fingers.

“Mm,” Maura says, sliding a paring knife through a white peach with a smooth motion. “Would you like to have dinner later?”

Jane pulls a face. “Pizza with Pops and Frankie. Say a prayer for me, don’t wait up.”

Maura makes another cut, easy as any autopsy, and slides a slice into her mouth, sweet and cold. She saw a new wine bar from the car window the other day. “If you’d like.”

//

“Have you experienced any complications around intimacy?” Melissa asks, and Maura considers the question.

“No,” she says finally, “but I have not had sex since before the… incident.”

“It’s normal to to experience feelings of anxiety, flashbacks, other behaviour that would normally feel out of character.”

“The last man I considered having intercourse with died,” Maura muses absently, “I was arrested and incarcerated for his murder, briefly.”

“I… see,” Melissa says. “Intimacy is more than sex, Maura, it’s emotional vulnerability.”

“I see,” Maura echoes.

//

Maura goes to a bar after her session and orders a single glass of wine. She plays her fingers around the stem of the glass and resolves to limit herself to just the one drink. A body slides up close to the bar and sighs, and Maura looks up. A woman in a soft looking blouse, tousled dark hair.

“Is it any good?” The woman asks, gesturing to the wine.

Maura takes a sip. “More than palatable,” she says, and the woman smiles.

“I’m new in town,” she says, gesturing for the bartender’s attention. She extends Maura her hand. “New town, new job, new… me. Jamie.”

Maura hesitates, chewing her lip. Emotional vulnerability. “Maura,” she says, offering a smile. When they shake hands Jamie’s is firm and easy. “Not exactly new.” Maura slides the glass her way. 

“Try it,” she says, and Jamie does. Her lipstick leaves a little smear on the glass and she wipes at it with the edge of her sleeve.

“Let me buy you another?”

It’s brazen and bold and Maura is taken aback for a moment. She feels like she’s at the verge of something, on the edge of a knife. Jamie’s biting her lip, not as smooth as she’d like to be, and it reminds Maura of someone, a little. Emotional vulnerability, she thinks. “I’d like that,” she says, soft and inviting. When Jamie smiles it lights up her brown eyes.

//

Jane bangs into Maura’s late, yawning, smelling like cheap beer. “Tommy showed and started throwing bottles,” she grumbles. “Can’t believe that boy is a father.”

Maura puts down the cheese and cracker plate. “Are you alright?”

Jane flops on the couch and puts her shoes up on the table. “Huh? Oh yeah, it was happy bottle throwing, not the…” she wiggles her fingers, “Rizzoli kind.”

Maura’s lips quirk. “Rizzoli kind?” She crosses the room and puts the platter down on the table to sit next to Jane. 

“Overly dramatic,” Jane explains, snagging a snack, “destructive.”

“Kind,” Maura corrects, “loving.”

Jane rolls her eyes. She spits out the cheese into her hand. “Don’t you have any Kraft singles?”

Maura rolls her eyes back and stands, swatting at Jane’s shoes. “Off,” she orders, crossing into the kitchen to find the box of cheap cheese chips Jane thinks she’s hidden well in the canned goods cupboard. “You know,” she says as she tips a portion into a bowl, “Melissa thinks I need to practice emotional vulnerability.”

She hears one thump, another, Jane letting her shoes drop against the floor. “If you think it’ll help.”

Maura thinks of Jamie smiling at her over the lip of a wine glass, their plans to get coffee tomorrow. “We’ll see,” she says, and lets Jane wipe cheese dust on her pants, flicking through the channels to find a cop show Jane likes to pretend to hate.

//

Jamie is late for coffee, her hair twisted up in an braid that’s pretty and functional all at once. “Sorry,” she says, flopping into the chair across Maura, “I wanted to change before I came.”

“A difficult shift?” Maura asks. “I would have ordered for you but I don’t know what you like.”

“I like you,” Jamie says, grinning, and Maura smiles despite herself. Jamie taps her fingers on the table. “Be right back,” she promises.

Maura checks her phone while Jamie goes to the counter to order. _burgers?_ Jane asks, and then a picture of a grease stained white bag _too late!_.

 _Be home in an hour_ Maura responds. She’s sure that Jane has gotten her a side salad as well, probably with some horribly unhealthy mustard vinaigrette on the side.

“Am I interrupting?” Jamie slides back into her chair, fingers curled around a steaming paper cup.

Maura clicks her phone dark and lays it face down. “Not at all.”

Jamie fidgets. “I uh, meant what I said earlier. New town, new job. I’d be happy just for a new friend.” She takes a too hot gulp and grimaces, reaching for the sugar. “No pressure, is what I’m struggling to say.”

Maura stretches a hand out and lays it on Jamie’s nervous fingers. “No pressure,” she agrees. When Jamie smiles Maura feels it in her chest, a hint of a spark.

//

“I’ve made a friend,” Maura tells Melissa. “Not connected to… work, or Jane.”

“Jane,” Melissa picks out, knowing eyes. “How are you finding this friendship?”

Maura frowns down at her journal. “Sexuality is fluid,” she says slowly, worrying at the leather binding with her nails. “And Jamie is… uncomplicated, for all we are virtually strangers.”

“Sometimes new things show us what we should have known,” Melissa says, more cryptic than she has ever been, and Maura opens her journal to discuss her progress.

//

Maura’s phone buzzes on the stainless steel tray and she hums at Jane. “Check that for me?” When Jane looks affronted she raises one gloved hand, shows Jane the blood and gore staining her fingers.

“‘Jay’ wants to know if you’re on for dinner tomorrow,” Jane says. “Oooh, who is this ‘Jay’ we wonder?”

“I don’t wonder,” Maura points out, leaning in closer to the body pinned out in front of her. “I know who it is.”

“You’re going to break Kent’s little heart,” Jane says.

“Hardly.” Maura steps back and snaps off her gloves, dropping them into a biohazard bin and crossing to wash her hands. “Your victim had a brain tumor, over the occipital lobe.” She scrubs at her palms with harsh soap and the stiff bristled brush. “Too big to operate, no signs it was treated with radiation.” She dries her hands and strips off the top layer of her scrubs.

“Why are you always getting naked down here,” Jane complains, “this is why Kent has a crush on you.”

Maura sighs. “I don’t do this when Kent is here,” she says, and holds out a hand for her phone. 

Jane tilts it out of her reach. “Tell me more about Jay,” she teases. Maura’s stomach flips. She hesitates. Jane goes from teasing to cautious concern. “He’s not another serial killer, is he?”

Maura snatches her phone away. “That was one time.” She fiddles with her phone case. “It’s new, and I find myself… protective.”

Jane huffs. “You don’t have to tell me, it’s fine.” Her face is stubborn, and it’s clearly not fine.

Maura sighs. “Jane. You’re the most important person in my life. Right now this relationship is casual, and--they don’t know about all the--” she waves a hand. “When the time is right your impression of them will be very important to me.”

Jane’s eyes narrow faintly. “Them,” she starts, but her phone rings and pulls her attention away.

//

Jamie’s apartment is tiny and cluttered and she kicks a pile of clothes into the coat closet, blushing. “I should have cleaned up. Sorry.”

Maura grew up in a pristine house and decorates her own in the taste her mother passed down to her. “I like it,” she says, of the lumpy couch and mismatched photo frames, and she does. It reminds her of Jane, lived in and imperfect and complicated and so much homier than anything Maura could have wished for, sitting as a child on plastic covers watching kids jumping on the bed on television.

“I like you,” Jamie says, grinning.

Maura smiles. “Is that your only line?” she asks idly, stepping out of her heels.

“I get flustered by pretty girls,” Jamie admits, “especially ones as classy as you.”

Maura is, and has been, easy with her own sexuality, accepting of what she finds attractive: dark hair, confidence, definition in the musculature. Finding it in women is a little new, but… “My therapist says I should try new experiences,” she says.

Jamie quirks an eyebrow, sliding close. “Well if it’s what the doctor orders…”

“I’m a doctor, actually,” Maura says.

“Cool,” Jamie says, and kisses her.

//

“I’m up to six hours a night,” Maura says, “and the nightmares are jarring but less likely to keep me awake.”

Melissa makes a note. “And your alcohol consumption?”

“No more than it was before,” Maura says. She’s limiting herself, and trying various fruits cut into filtered mineral water instead of a glass of wine before bed. 

//

She wakes shaking, with a cut off shout, and can hear Jane’s bare feet slap against the wooden floors before she falls into Maura’s room. “Maura?” her voice is half a whisper half a shout, roughened by sleep.

“A dream,” Maura says, running a hand through faintly sweaty hair and grasping for the glass of water she keeps on the nightstand. “I’m fine.”

Jane flops face first on her mattress and groans. Maura drinks and nudges Jane with her foot, offering her the water. Jane grunts a negative, but rolls over to lie on her back. Maura helps her drag her mass of curls off her face, smiling affectionately. “Camped out on the couch again?”

“Frankie’s sucks,” Jane mumbles. “I need to go househunting.”

“Mm,” Maura says, trailing her nails along the edge of Jane’s ear and along her scalp. Jane shivers and then sighs, relaxing, canting her head into Maura’s touch. “Tomorrow thoughts,” Maura says, flipping over to lie with her feet where her pillow is. She leans her cheek against Jane’s shoulder and a snatch of dream hits her, crawling in the dark with blood on her tongue. She shivers violently.

Jane throws an arm over her hips. “Okay?” she mumbles.

Maura closes her eyes determinedly. “Yeah.”

//

Maura texts Kent she’s heading home and emails Melissa explaining what’s happened and that she’d like a few days to rest. She plays with her phone for a moment, but she doesn't want to bother Jane, and she doesn’t want to be coddled. The follow up appointment was brisk and professional and she likes her doctor, but it’s frustrating to sit and wait, no matter what she tells Jane about letting what she can’t control consume her.

Jamie rolls up in a four door sedan with peace sign bumpersticker. “You’re lucky,” she says, grinning, “My shift doesn’t start for a few hours.” She catches Maura’s glance and grimaces. “A prank from my brother,” she says, plucking at the edge of the sticker. “I’ll find something to cover it up someday.”

“Your hair’s a mess,” Maura says fondly, and Jamie fingercombs it roughly. 

“Just woke up,” she says. She steps close, careful slow, and touches around the cut on Maura’s forehead. “Your head’s a mess.” More than you know, Maura thinks wryly. 

“Drive me home?” she asks instead, and Jamie nods. She opens Maura’s door for her with a wink and when she moves to walk around the car Maura catches her by the wrist and kisses her once, quick and soft.

Jamie’s radio plays crackling classic rock and she hums along while she drives to Maura’s house. “You can tell me what’s going on,” she says absently, “but you don’t have to.” Everything about Jamie is simple and Maura doesn’t really understand why the easy glide of them makes her headache ratchet up.

“Brain damage,” she says, flippant in a way that’s unlike her, and Jamie snorts before realizing she’s serious. 

“Oh,” she says, and they finish the drive in silence.

Jamie walks her to her door and scratches the back of her head. “Uh, I can come by after my shift?” she asks.

“That’s not necessary,” Maura says. “Dinner on Friday?”

Jamie smiles, slivery relief. “For sure.” She kisses Maura again, against her front door, and when she pulls away to bounce down the steps Angela stands behind her, mouth open.

Maura freezes, one hand on her doorknob. “I brought soup,” Angela says, holding up the tupperware. She turns to stare at Jamie driving away.

“That’s very thoughtful,” Maura says. Angela’s eyes narrow, and then relax.

“You probably shouldn’t be having sex with a concussion,” she says, winking, and Maura flushes all the way down her chest. 

//

“Why,” Jane says, walking in Maura’s backdoor like it’s her own house, “does my mother keep calling me to say I’ve missed the train and then laugh nervously?” She tries to eat a piece of fish off the platter and Maura swats at her with the spatula. “It’s a serious laugh,” she says, “with a tinge of hysteria, I’m going to need you to be serious about it.”

“Rizzolis are odd and complicated creatures,” Maura says, turning off the stove. “Have you eaten?”

“No,” Jane says, and opens the fridge for a beer. She seems pleased that the same amount are present than when she last checked, and Maura automatically makes her a plate, fish and spinach and brown rice. They sit on her couch and Jane takes a long draw of her beer. “Food,” she says, slouching down, “beer. We’re not that complicated.”

“Are you staying tonight?” Maura asks. Jane shrugs. Maura frowns. “Then I’m going back to the station with you,” she says, stealing Jane’s beer for a fake sip, letting it just wet her lips.

“Hey!” Jane snatches the bottle back. “No alcohol for the brain damaged. And you need to sleep.”

Maura shrugs. “So do you.”

“Fine,” Jane says after a moment. “But I drive you to work tomorrow and hand you off to Kent.”

“Hand me off? I’m not a football.”

Jane ignores her. “And we’re getting donuts on the way.”

//

Maura sits cross-legged on the floor of her office, eyes closed. “Meditating?” Jane asks.

Maura doesn’t open her eyes. “I told Kent no disruptions.”

She hears Jane’s shoes drag on the floor, her weight settle into a chair. “Good thing he’s afraid of me.”

Silence drags for a moment, and then the unmistakable sound of something tumbling to the floor. Maura’s eyes snap open. Jane looks at her, sheepish. “Oops?” She scoops a wooden figurine from the floor and shakes it. “It’s fine.”

Maura lies back to arch her spine and stretch. “That was a gift from my father.”

“Is yoga helping the…” Jane waves a hand around her head.

“It’s a memory exercise,” Maura says absently, rolling smoothly into a full splits. Jane goggles at her a little and she smiles. “I’m very flexible,” she says, rolling to her feet and shucking her yoga pants.

“Jesus Christ,” Jane says, slapping a hand over her eyes, “just once I’d like to come to the morgue and not see you naked.”

“Don’t be a prude, Jane.” Maura hops into pants, doing up the zipper one handed, and the little jump makes her sway.

“Maura?” Jane catches her around the waist.

“Dizziness is a perfectly normal symptom,” Maura tells her, but doesn't fight when Jane eases her back to lean against the desk and does up the button for her.

“Uh,” Kent says from the doorway, his mouth hanging open.

Jane doesn’t pull away, the tips of two fingers still dipped in Maura’s waistband. “What?”

“Test results,” Kent stutters, gaping.

“Ooh,” Jane steps away, crossing the room and snatching the folder from his hands. “Thanks.” Kent moves to follow her and she shoves him back. “Maura’s dizzy, don’t leave her alone.”

“Jane,” Maura protests, but Jane’s already gone.

//

Maura steps out of the bathroom after her shower, wrapped in a robe, wringing her hair out with a towel, and Jane is standing next to her bed, arms crossed. “What took you so long,” she demands.

Maura blinks at her. “I wasn’t aware there was a time limit.”

“I thought you passed out and drowned in there,” Jane grumbles. “There’s a body in the river, want a ride?”

“I don’t think they need me until the body’s out of the river,” Maura says, giggling at her own joke. Jane rolls her eyes but her lips quirk. “I’m about to get naked again,” she says, “if it’s going to upset you.”

“Can you get naked without dead bodies nearby? Want me to lie down on the bed and think cold thoughts?” 

“Only if the mood strikes you,” Maura says, opening her closet. 

//

“I can’t believe we caught this case,” Jane is grumbling, lurking to the side as Maura performs a preliminary examination. “It was obviously that idiot.”

Maura looks to the side, where a man is crying as Korsak tries to interview him. “Perhaps they are trying to ease you back into normal casework.”

“Perhaps I’m in the shithouse and this is my punishment,” Jane says, which is probably closer to the truth. “You’d think they’d be happy I cleared an arson, a kidnapping, a shooting, assault, attempted murder, murder, multiple murders…”

Maura rolls the victim’s head to the side. “I think they’d be happier if you’d captured Alice Sands alive,” she muses.

“Everyone’s a critic.” Jane turns, shielding her eyes against the sun. “EMTs are here, we’ll have to crack him at the hospital. Got a cause of death?”

“I’ll need to run some tests,” Maura says, “I’m not yet sure if the blunt force trauma occurred before she hit the water or after.”

“If he pushed her it doesn’t matter. Murder either way.”

“It matters to me,” Maura points out, standing. 

“Maura,” someone says before Jane can respond. They turn as one. Jamie comes up in an EMT uniform. “Hey.”

“Jamie,” Maura says, surprised. Jamie curls a hand around her wrist, smiling softly. Maura pulls away. “You’re taking the body back?”

Jamie steps back and hides hurt, poorly. “Yeah. Drew the short stick.”

Maura feels bad and steps forward, catching her hand. “We’re still on for dinner tomorrow?”

Jamie’s face softens. “Of course. Italian?”

Maura smiles. “I like Italian.”

Jamie grins, sly. “I like you.” Jane makes an audible choking noise. A paramedic sidles up, a woman with dark eyes and tan skin.

“Jamie? You ready?” It’s Jamie’s turn to step back, flushing.

“Yeah,” she says, and Maura turns to walk back to the car.

“Jamie,” Jane says, dogging her. “As in ‘Jay’?”

“Yes,” Maura says crisply, ducking under the crime scene tape. 

“Wha--” Jane says, and makes several garbled noises in a row. 

Maura stops walking and Jane doesn’t, drawn short by jolting into Maura’s shoulder. “Wha--” she says again. Her mouth is hanging open. Maura peers at her.

“Are you feeling alright, Jane?”

“You!” Jane says, pointing. Korsak calls her and she walks backwards towards him, still facing Maura. “We are not done with this conversation!”

“Did we start this conversation?” Maura asks. “I’ll wait in the car,” she amends when Jane looks like she might start choking again.

//

Jane knocks on the driver’s side window and yanks her thumb backwards. Maura sighs and gets out. “Are you sure I shouldn’t drive? You seem to be suffering an emotional imbalance.”

“You _are_ an emotional imbalance,” Jane snaps, and slams the door shut when she gets in.

Maura slides into the passenger seat and does up her seatbelt. “That’s not very mature of you.”

Jane turns the engine over and then thumps her face on the steering wheel. “Arrghh.”

Maura rubs her back. “You’ve had a very trying week,” she says, sympathetic. “Do you want to go eat something deep fried cheap and greasy?”

“Yeah,” Jane says, muffled. Then she sits up. “What the hell? You’re gay now?”

Maura huffs. “That’s very unenlightened of you, Jane.”

Jane ignores her. “Is this what Ma’s been trying to tell me? You told _Ma_ before you told me?”

“I haven’t told anyone,” Maura says, removing her hand. “Sexuality,” she begins, and Jane groans. “Sexuality,” she repeats, louder, “is fluid, and--”

“Ugh,” Jane says, “fine. You’re dating chicks now. Please stop talking about your… fluids.”

Maura smiles. “Lunch?”

“Yeah,” Jane says, “he lawyered up anyway, but it’s a lock. Witnesses are solid, we’ll contact family and friends to get evidence of fighting.”

//

Jane lingers in her house, slouched on her couch, drinking her way through two beers. “I do see the resemblance between you and your father,” Maura muses, applying lipstick in the hall mirror. 

Jane scoffs, standing. “Need me to zip you up?”

“Please,” Maura says, turning as she slips into her heels. Jane’s nails trail along her spine for a second, drawing the zipper up to her neck.

“Text me on the hour,” Jane says, and hesitates.

“I’ve been out with her before,” Maura says, rolling her eyes, “you’ve met her and you know where she works.”

Jane kneels, sudden, and slips the slim straps through the buckles at Maura’s shoes, fingers careful around her ankles. Maura’s breath catches. “On the hour,” Jane says, looking up at her, a loose hand curled around her heel. “Or I call SWAT.”

“Okay,” Maura says softly, her mouth dry.

//

“So that was Jane Rizzoli,” Jamie says, sitting on the edge of the counter while Maura cooks in her tiny kitchen. “People talk about her.”

Maura stirs carefully, extends the spoon. “Taste. What do they say?”

Jamie sips obediently. “More salt? Not much. Mostly good things.”

“You eat too much salt,” Maura says, “you and Jane.” She pauses, frowning. “Jane is a good person,” she says stiffly, “she is my best friend.”

Something flickers on Jamie’s face. “Right. Good things, I said, remember?”

Maura forces herself to take a breath. “Of course.”

Jamie fiddles with the label on her beer. “You know my partner, Rafa?” Maura dimly remembers the woman from earlier at the river, nods. “I should know better,” Jamie says, looking dejected and sighing, “chasing after straight girls, but…” she shrugs. “You should know, anyway.”

Maura makes herself think it through. “I understand,” she says. Jamie looks at her, apprehensive. “I do,” she says, smiling. Something has eased in her chest, and she feels giddy. She kisses Jamie, soft until Jamie reciprocates, confusion in her face. “This doesn’t have to be anything other than what it is.”

Jamie smiles at her, slow and then quick and happy. “Good,” she says, cheery again. “Should we eat? You should know that lesbians aren’t supposed to enjoy cock.”

Maura rolls her eyes. “It’s _coq_ and it’s chicken. With wine. And I’m not a lesbian.”

“Wine I can get behind,” Jamie says, hopping off the counter. “I’ll get your plate?”

“Please,” Maura says, stepping away to find her purse. “I need to text Jane.”

“Mmm,” Jamie says, and it’s tinged with something. Before Maura can put her finger on it, she’s distracted by Jane, smiling fondly as Jane inquires if Jamie’s treating her right and an offer to create a work emergency.

//

She slips in late, her hair tousled, yawning. Jane is asleep on her couch, her phone resting on her chest. Maura kicks her shoes away, too tired to neatly straighten them in her closet, and shakes Jane’s shoulder gently. “I’m home,” she whispers as Jane stirs. “You’ll hurt your back if you stay there.” Jane toddles down the hall, leaning on her shoulder, and collapses onto Maura’s bed.

“How’s your date,” she slurs while Maura changes, hangs her dress.

“Good,” Maura says, washing her face with a wetwipe. “You didn’t have to wait up.”

“I didn’t. I’m asleep.”

“Ah.” Maura slides under the sheet and tugs the blanket at the foot of the bed over Jane’s askewed limbs. “Goodnight Jane.” Jane snores in response and Maura sighs, fond, closing her eyes.

//

Jamie breaks up with her on a Tuesday. “It’s,” she stammers over chicken and pasta, “I hope you're not--”

“I’ll miss you,” Maura says, thinking it through. “I would like to remain friends.”

Jamie looks relieved. “I would like that also.”

“Because you like me,” Maura says, and knows it was a good joke when Jamie grins.

“I’m trying to make a go of it at my partner,” she says, cheerful again. “You should too.”

“Jane isn’t interested in girls,” Maura says, and then backtracks, “I’m not interested in Jane.”

“Sure,” Jamie says, “whatever you say.”

Maura slides her foot up Jamie’s calf, under the table. “Are you amenable to one last round of sexual intercourse before we ‘call it quits’?”

 

After, Jamie helps Maura back into her dress and Maura fixes her hair in the bathroom mirror. “I’m not wrong,” Jamie says, leaning against the wall. “She’s into you. You’re into her. Go for it.”

Maura kisses her on the cheek. “Call me for coffee sometime.”

//

“She broke up with you two days before your surgery?” Jane stands and reaches for her blazer. “We’re going to have words.”

“Jane,” Maura says, laughing a little, “what words would have to exchange with each other?”

“Well hers will be mostly ‘ow’ and ‘stop it, please’.”

“My knight in shining armor,” Maura says dryly. “How about you buy me dinner instead? I can’t eat before my surgery, and I’m craving something decadent. Maybe escargot.”

“Oh gross, Maura, that’s snails. Even I know that’s snails.” But Jane takes her to a fancy French place anyway, muttering under her breath while she squints at the menu. “You’re really okay with it?”

“Yes Jane. No need to defend my honor.”

“Like you have any. Painting the town red with your new girlfriend. Harlot.” Maura laughs, the last clench of sorrow and loss in her chest easing.

“We had spoken beforehand. It was never anything more than a casual meeting of acquaintances. A friendship at best.”

Jane twists her face up. “That’s the least sexy description of anything I’ve ever heard. Eat your snails.”

“They’re very good.” Maura offers Jane her fork. “It’s essentially butter and salt. You’ll like it.”

“I’ll do a lot of things for you, Maura Isles, but if you don’t get that fork away from me I’ll shoot you.”

//

Jane isn’t much of a cuddler but the night before the surgery Maura wakes from the last vestiges of an unsettling dream, her alarm clock blinking three in the morning in red lines, and Jane’s arm is across her hips, holding her tightly. She can feel Jane’s breath on the back of her neck. Her breathing isn’t quite right--Maura knows what her REM cycle sounds like.

“Jane?”

“Go to sleep,” Jane says quietly. “You have surgery tomorrow.”

“Are you upset I didn’t tell you about Jamie right away?”

“What? No. I’m over that.”

“What’s keeping you up, then?”

Jane huffs out an impatient exhale. “I worry about you, okay? Sue me.” She moves to pull away and Maura grabs her arm,. She presses a soft kiss to the inside of Jane’s wrist and tucks her arm back against her waist.

“I’m very thankful for you.”

Jane’s breath hitches. “Don’t do that. You said this is a minor procedure.”

“Of course. There is nothing to worry about.”

“You’ll be fine,” Jane says, like she’s trying to convince herself. She scoots her body closer, solid and warm and safe.

Maura rolls over, their faces abruptly close. Jane’s eyes go a little cross-eyed, looking at her. “You’re important to me,” Maura says, and presses a soft, closed mouth kiss to Jane’s lips. Her belly jumps; her chest sparks. Jane gapes at her, shocked. “We’ll talk after the surgery,” Maura says firmly, and closes her eyes, her head tucked under Jane’s chin. 

Jane sputters, then grumbles, then gathers Maura closer. She feels lips press against her forehead. Maura smiles. She sleeps better than she has in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, but I'm burned out on Rizzoli and Isles. Hope it wasn't too disappointing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP, although I'm not anticipating too many chapters. It may update slowly, as my job is time consuming and saps my will to write. I promise not to leave it unfinished, if you're willing to be patient. 
> 
> Please feel free to leave me any criticism. Like I said, I haven't seen many episodes and would appreciate anything constructive on my take on the characterization. 
> 
> This will be the shortest of the chapters.


End file.
